The March Toward Atlanta
by Chandler1200
Summary: A series of one-shot prequels that lead to the explosive show in Atlanta for EverClear and their number one fan. If you haven't read EverClear or EverClear Revamped, I suggest doing that first.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: I don't own any part of the Twilight universe but you guys already knew that.**

**I'm back!! And thrilled that you guys are back for more EverClear. I am doing a couple of very long one-shots that chronicle parts of the back-story for EverClear. As of now, there are 3 planned. Why? Very simple. I want to let all you guys know about a wonderful program coming up in June.**

**The Fandom Gives Back, Eclipse Edition will kick off on the end of June and run for a week. The dates will coincide with the release of Eclipse. For those of you that don't know what FGB is, just go to thefandomgivesback(dot)com. Last year, the auction rose over $80k for Alex's Lemonade Stand. I will be a part of this year's auction. I am offering up 3 one-shots of the purchaser's choice. Anything you wanted from EverClear or EverClear Revamped….this will be your chance to read it. **

**With each one-shot, I will give you guys more information about this incredible cause and how you can show your support. **

**See you guys at the bottom! **

The March Toward Atlanta

Prequel to EverClear

Chapter 1- My Immortal

EPOV

"Can you remember the last time he fed?"

"I'm not sure but I think it was the trip to Canada with the boys three months ago."

"Carlisle! We have to do something. He can't go on like this indefinitely."

"Dear, I would go upstairs and forcibly remove him from that closet myself if I thought it would do any good. But Jasper told me they hunted for him and he still wouldn't feed. I don't know what we can do except be patient and ready when he's ready."

"What do you mean 'hunted for him'?"

I cringed at the memory of the incident that Carlisle was explaining to my mother. Just three weeks ago, I thought…time had ceased to mean much; Jasper had knocked on my balcony door at two in the morning with a freshly caught elk in his arms. He had pled with me to at least feed, even if I didn't want to leave the house to hunt. I could hear the guilt and sorrow in his thoughts and hated that I was unable to offer him any sort of comfort. But I simply couldn't. I couldn't muster any emotion except agony and he'd had enough of that from me in the last three years to last ten lifetimes. I'd meant it when I told him I appreciated his gesture and was sorry for the trouble he'd gone to.

But I'd closed the door on my brother and his offering and gone back to my solitary confinement.

"Carlisle? What if we…"

My body tensed with the pain in my mother's voice. And terror at what her next words would be. She was becoming desperate in her concern for me. And desperate people sometimes did desperate things. With all the strength I could muster, I stood up from my position on the floor of the completely dark closet that I had lived in for the last however many weeks. It was the longest I had gone without an attack and I accredited the reprieve to the total silence and darkness of the room. My eyes shut of their own accord as the first rays of light hit them and my feet felt heavy as I made my way out of the den I'd made for myself and across the bedroom. I noticed that the conversation one floor below me ceased as my footsteps echoed through the house.

My poor mother's thought flew in a dozen different directions as I trudged down the flight of steps. But mercifully, none of them were in the same direction that she'd been on the edge of thinking just seconds ago. The ringing echo of each step sounded strange to my ears, so used to the silence I had submerged myself in. As I neared the polished oak door that would bring me face to face with my family, I took two completely unnecessary breaths and allowed the scents to fill my head. Familiar and comforting, the unique smell of the two people that had cared for me for nearly a century eased the tension in my back slightly. The cold metal of the brass handle slid easily in my hand and I opened the door to the study and to the worried faces that had both turned to look in my direction.

"Edward?"

"Edward!"

The shocked expressions on Carlisle and Esme's faces would have been comical if they hadn't also been so sad. Both stood from their chairs and made to cross the room, my father looking concerned and my mother smiling from ear to ear. It had been the same every time I'd given in to their concern over the last couple of years. I would hide away until my mother worried to the point of panicking and then I would emerge for a day or two, have an attack and then retreat again.

"I…I was," my voice cracked as I spoke for the first time in nearly a month. I cleared my throat and tried again. "I was wondering if you would…hunt…"

"Of course, dear," Esme squealed as she wrapped her arms around me. I stood stiffly for a moment, the contact with another person feeling foreign, before I returned her hug. "Thank you, my sweet boy. Thank you."

She linked her arm through mine and I caught a fleeting thought that she was holding on to me to make sure that I didn't change my mind. The three of us descended the stairs slowly, barely at a human pace. As we passed a large mirror near the landing, I caught a brief glimpse of my reflection. My eyes were black as onyx. The circles beneath them were a deep purple and my skin looked almost waxy. Even for a vampire, I looked like death.

Waiting for us at the bottom of the staircase was Alice, a small smile on her lips. Of course, she'd seen my actions and supportive as always, waited to join our impromptu hunting party. She stepped forward, kissed my cheek lightly and then took my free hand in hers. Carlisle wrenched the door open to reveal an extremely overcast sky that threatened snow at any minute. The shock of cold air surprised me as it washed over my skin.

"What is the date?" I turned my head toward Alice when my question was met with silence from all three of my companions. My sister stopped in her tracks and turned to face me, her eyes wide and somewhat fearful.

"You guys go ahead," she said to Carlisle and Esme without breaking eye contact with me. From the corner of my eye, I saw them both nod. With a small squeeze of encouragement, my mother took off toward the dark green forest that surrounded our property, my father on her heels.

"It's mid September, Edward."

"Alice, what is the date?" I asked as I felt my hands begin to shake.

"September thirteenth."

The breath left my chest in a rush as my body crumbled to the ground. I curled my fingers around the nearly frozen grass beneath me and lowered my head until my forehead touched the icy earth. I could not steady my breathing, nor could I move from my fetal position.

"Edward, breathe," Alice said as soothingly as possible as she rubbed my back in small circles. Over and over, she said the same words of comfort, her hand never ceasing its movements. After an immeasurable amount of time passed, she whispered "it's almost over" directly in my ear.

"Alice, I'm sorry," I said with a shaky voice when I finally sat up. I crossed my arms over my chest tightly as I stared into the now dark forest.

"Its fine, Edward. I just wish I could have stopped it. But there was no way around it."

"She's twenty-one today."

"I know."

"Alice?"

"No, honey, I haven't seen her," she said as she stood and extended her hand to me. "Please," she said at my hesitation.

Uneasily, I took her hand and let her pull me to my feet. We walked toward the forest with our fingers twined around each other, the lingering specter keeping pace with us.

"I wonder what she's doing," I said as much to the night air as to my sister beside me.

"Probably the very last thing that either of us would expect."

Her accurate answer made me smile just a little. She wouldn't be partaking of the customary twenty-first birthday celebrations that most of her peers would. At least I hoped not.

"Maybe its time to call Jay Jenks again."

"That might be a good idea. Let me know if you decide to do it and I'll keep an eye out."

As we entered the comfort of the blackened forest, my sister released my hand. At the loss of contact, I stood still and simply let the ebony clouds consume me. I felt my hands begin to shake again as I recalled a night exactly three years ago…

"There's something I want us to do once you've fed. But you have to feed, Edward," Alice said softly, interrupting the growing panic in my chest.

"What are we going to do? I'm not really up for much," I asked as I brushed the debris off my pants where it had collected earlier.

"Well," she said in a light tone of voice. "I'm not really sure. Here, look."

She opened her mind to me as we began to move deeper into the tree line. The image was relatively simple. The two of us were sitting at the desk in the corner of my room staring at the small laptop computer on its top. But startling, we were both smiling.

"See? Whatever it is, it's enough to make you smile, at least a little."

I simply nodded to her as the faint trail of something distinctly feline caught my attention. Without a word, the two of us sprinted out into the vastness ahead of us. It was the first time I could remember in a very long time feeling anything but pain. That was still the overwhelming emotion but something akin to curiosity was laced with it as my legs stretched and carried me toward the scent.

Several hours later, the four of us returned to the house. The sun was just beginning to rise above the mountain, beckoning a new day. Reluctant though I was to admit it, I did feel physically better since our hunt. The gnawing ache that had settled into my back and hips was completely absent and the movement of my limbs seemed somehow unencumbered.

As we entered the house, I noticed that Jasper's scent was present, something that had been missing when we'd left earlier. I turned to Alice, ready to excuse myself so as not to keep her from her husband but was interrupted.

"Don't even say it," she said teasingly. "I have you out of hibernation for the first time in God only knows how long and I intend on making the best of it. Now go upstairs and change your clothes. I love you but you kind of stink," she finished with a beautiful smile.

"I don't stink," I said flatly even though I had been trying to return her humor.

"Well, that's true. But you are wrinkled and that's almost as bad."

"Oh Alice," Esme chuckled as she took in my appearance. "Only you, my precious pixie, would equate a wrinkled shirt with smelling bad. Honey," she said turning fully to face me, "I am so proud of you. I know this was hard, especially…" she trailed off as she took in my apparently terrified expression. "Anyway, thank you and I love you."

"I love you too, Mom," I said as I stepped forward to embrace her. She returned the hug fiercely and only let me go when Carlisle cleared his throat.

"Come on, Edward, up you go. We have something to do."

Like a child, I followed her directions without question. I was a shadow of myself. I knew, logically, that I was still the same. But I had neither the will nor the desire to be myself. The man I had been had predicated the shell I was now and I deserved it for all that I'd inflicted. And I had no intention of trying, ever again, to impose myself on anyone.

Alice walked into my room just as I pulled a fresh shirt over my chest. Smiling at me reassuringly, she pulled a chair from across the room so that it sat next to the desk chair that had never been used. Since our move, I'd not touched a single thing in my room outside of the couch. Not the televisions, not the desk, not even the stereo.

Every piece of furniture I'd owned had to be replaced once we'd settled in Oregon. In a fit I had no memory of; I'd destroyed virtually everything in my room in Forks. Save for a small portion of my music collection, that still resided in the crates my family had packed them in three years ago, not a single piece had survived. The long black leather couch that I'd spent….

"Edward, honey, come here," my sister said before my mind could conjure the images that I both longed for and feared.

I took my place next to her as she opened the top of the laptop computer she'd given me shortly after we'd moved. I had never even turned the power on, so I was surprised when the small device immediately sprang to life already set up for use. At the rear edge of the computer was a clear box that held an Ipod, also never even turned on.

"Is that set up as well," I asked as I nodded my head toward the small black device.

"Of course," she answered as she moved the cursor to an icon on the screen that said "Itunes". "Have you ever used one?"

"No but I understand the concept," I said more bitingly than I'd meant.

"There's no need to get snippy," she said and I immediately felt bad. She was simply trying to distract me, not make me uncomfortable. "I just asked because it can be a little odd to get used to finding what you're looking for and getting it loaded."

"I know. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be an ass."

"I know you didn't, Edward," she responded with a gently squeeze to my hand. As the home screen filled the small computer screen, she began explaining to me the ins and outs of the site, how to create playlists and how to search out different composers. In truth, I already had the information that she was explaining to me, even if I'd never used it. But her thoughts were happy and excited to have me interacting with her on any level, so I let her explain the entire process without interruption. At least one of us could feel joy and after everything I'd put her, and my family, through, I could at least give her this.

"So who do you want to look up first?"

"Debussy," I answered automatically. With a few keystrokes, the screen filled with a listing of nearly one hundred different versions of the composer's compositions, each one by a different orchestra.

"Which song?" she asked even as she moved the cursor toward the first song on the list.

"Arabesque I," I replied, shocking her briefly. She moved down the list slowly, looking for the piece that I'd requested. Once the download had begun, she swiftly moved back up the list and clicked the song she had originally guessed I would request.

"Alice…I can't…"

"Edward, there are so many more good memories. And music is attached to most of them. Please, just try for me. If it doesn't work, I will erase them all myself."

I looked into the deep amber eyes of my sister. She had stood beside me for so long, had protected me from the concern of my family even when doing so caused her grief and had loved me even though I didn't deserve it. Her eyes plead with me as I warred with myself over the swirling emotions and memories in my mind. With a sigh, I gave in to her request. Her smile was blinding as she hugged me, nearly pulling me out of the chair I sat in.

"Who next?" she asked more enthusiastically.

"Linkin Park."

And so the pattern began. For the next several hours, I rattled off an artist or composer and her fingers flew until she located them for me. Only a few of my request posed some difficulty for her and her triumphant smile when she finally found them was enough to make the corners of my mouth turn up as well. The memories that were associated with a large portion of the selections seemed less painful to remember as I watched the list grow longer and longer. As the songs played through the speakers, the images flashed through my mind as if I were watching a movie. I still felt the emotions intensely as I listened but the music provided a buffer against the searing pain that had accompanied me every second of the last three years. It was more like a slow constant burning pain rather than the all consuming agony I'd become accustomed to.

"Guys?" Jasper's voice called through the door as he knocked his knuckles against the wood. Without waiting for an answer, he turned the knob and opened the door. "Can I interrupt for a moment?"

"Sure thing, Cowboy," Alice sung as she danced her way across the room to her husband.

Jasper's first thought was to wrap his arms around her. I hung my head at the realization that he would not act upon that impulse because of me. My entire family had been extraordinarily careful about showing affection for their mates when I was present. As much as I hated myself for my inability to handle such loving displays, I greatly appreciated their restraint. Even the most innocent of touches between any of the three couples in our household was enough to send me into an attack but none were more potent than Alice and Jasper. The intensity of their connection rivaled…

"Ed, man, chill," my brother said in a voice that sounded as if it were under water. "Its fine, bro, just breathe."

I shoved my hands into my hair roughly and pulled as hard as I could. The pain of my action was enough to control the bubbling inferno that had sprung in my chest. I took a couple of quick breaths as I regained my composure and turned to look at the two of them standing in the center of the room. I hoped that Jasper could feel my remorse at not being able to control the reaction and would convey my sorrow to Alice later.

"Esme is going to Portland and wanted to know if you wanted to come with her," he continued while still eyeing me. "The trip has been planned for a couple of weeks now but I think she kind of counted on you going with her."

Alice hesitated for a moment. Her thoughts went wild with the idea of shopping in the city that was so far removed from our retreat at the edge of the mountain but then halted as she looked at me.

"Alice, go. I'm alright, I promise. It will be good for you," I said with what I hoped was a smile. "Jaz, you should go also, I'm sure you could do with getting away from me for a while."

"Are you sure? I don't mind staying," my sister asked while trying to conceal the excitement in her voice and thoughts.

"Positive. Go and enjoy yourselves."

"If you need us…"

"I'll call you if I need you. It's just for the night, sis. Really, go and have fun."

With a grin, she crossed the room back to me and hugged me ferociously. As she released me, she eyed the screen on the laptop.

"One more thing, Edward. If you type in a word in the search line, it will pull up all the songs that have that subject in common. When I get back tomorrow, I want to see the playlists that you've come up with. Alright?"

"Whatever you say. Now go or Esme will leave without you guys."

I sat perfectly still in my chair and listened to the flurry of activity on the two floors below me as my family prepared to leave. It was nearly comical to hear the suitcases yanked out of closets and the rattle of hangers as my mother and sister pulled item after item and threw them into the open cases. For twenty minutes, it was madness below me and then just as quickly as the noise had begun, silence fell over the house.

I stared at the computer screen in front of me as the Mercedes engine faded away. In the couple of hours that we'd been searching, I'd amassed more than two hundred songs. As I looked at them, there was no rhyme or reason to how they were listed other than the order in which Alice had been able to find them. Hesitantly, I reached for the mouse and placed the cursor into the "Search" box. A thousand different phrases flew through my mind as I thought of subjects to search. I closed my eyes and rested my fingers on the keyboard. The texture of the keys felt odd after having gone so long without touching a computer. Smooth and rippled at the same time. I took a deep breath and let my fingers move without thinking of the keys they were hitting. As I exhaled, I opened my eyes to search out the words I had typed.

**Brown Eyes.**

My fingers began to shake slightly as the words pulled forth the image of the only eyes that would ever matter in my world. Piercing and knowing, full of compassion and understanding. The tightening in my chest grew uncomfortable as I shifted in the wooden back chair and tried to calm myself. I gave a cursory glance at the list of songs that had appeared at my command. The action did nothing to help the increasing rigor mortis that was trying to overtake me.

There were songs titled "Brown Eyes" by artist that ranged from Fleetwood Mac to Destiny's Child to someone named Lady Gaga. I could feel my chest tighten as "Brown Eyed Girl" by VanMorrison pulled up on the list. I'd always appreciated but never fully understood his music until that fateful day in January so long ago. My muscles loosed infinitesimally at the sight of "Don't it Make My Brown Eyes Blue" by Crystal Gale as I recalled a serenade of the hideous song that Jasper had sang for Alice in the late seventies. Feeling somewhat better at the choices Itunes came up with for my phrase, I clicked the bar again and typed another phrase.

**First Love.**

The corresponding list was much longer for this word group. The first selection on the list was a compilation titled "Love Songs of the 90's". No, definitely not. I scanned further down, seeing titles by Adele, the J. Giles Band and a band named Pantera that sounded disturbing when I clicked on the preview. I closed the screen down when Tim McGraw began to sing "Its Your Love", brining a new round of shivers and muscle spasms. The next word I typed was still very much a part of my memories but there was very little in terms of "good" that I could think of associated with it.

**Blood.**

The listings that came up with that word were a bit scary. Most of the bands were classified as either alternative or metal and all had names that ranged from the amusing to the down right bizarre. Papa Roach and Band of Skulls stood out as the most original of the bunch. There was a song by Pearl Jam that I vaguely remembered hearing once or twice. There was even a song by Coldplay that pulled up under this particular category. Feeling more amused than I had since I'd begun my search for subjects rather than specific songs, I typed in the most obvious word. What I had no way of knowing was that the simple word and mundane action would irrevocably change everything for me.

**Vampire.**

The word, innocuous and loaded simultaneously, called forth the longest list yet. I scrolled down past artists with names like Antsy Pants and the rebellious Sinead O'Connor and onto the more interesting bands. A group names Vampire Weekend had several tracks that were slightly interesting and there was a hysterical song titled "Rockabilly Vampire" by Ralph Rebel that made me chuckle for the first time in longer than I could remember. But the further down the list I got, the stranger the items became. "If I Was Your Vampire" by Marilyn Manson and "Dragula" by Rob Zombie topped the list of loud aggressive songs that pulled up. Songs by Arcade Fire and Atreyu also made the list, as their subject matter was clearly sanguinary beings. I was nearly ready to click out of this search when a song three quarters of the way down caught my eye.

"My Immortal" by EverClear.

The band was completely unfamiliar to me. They were classified as metal/alternative but something about the title made me click on the preview. What poured from the speakers of the computer left me nearly incoherent? Instead of the loud thrashing cacophony of the majority of the bands on this particular search, I was met with a breath-taking piano piece. The melody was simple but powerful. There was a very genuine feel to the opening bars and when the twenty second preview finished, I immediately hit the "purchase" button. As soon as the download was complete, I turned the volume up to high and hit the play option.

Thirty seconds into the song, my world shifted on its axis. Not only was the intro beautiful but it gave way to a much more dynamic arrangement. I found my fingers twitching against the cool wood of the desk top, almost as if I were playing with the song. But I was wholly unprepared for my reaction when the vocals began.

**I'm so tired of being here**

**Suppressed by all my childish fears**

**And if you have to leave**

**I wish that you would just leave**

**Your presence still lingers here**

**And it won't leave me alone**

**These wounds won't seem to heal**

**This pain is just too real**

**And there's just too much **

**That time will not erase**

I couldn't think or breathe or blink. The powerful raw words were sharp as knives as they drove into my chest, each one bringing a new pain with it. It was the most poetic expression of the constant excruciating agony that I'd lived with for three years that I could possibly imagine. Every word seemed to cut to the bone. But there was so much more to what I felt as I listened than just the words themselves. The tenor of the female singer's voice seemed to nearly shake with the emotions she felt as she sang. The clear strong soprano voice rang through the room demanding my utter attention and contrition.

Bella.

Bella.

Bella.

Music had always been more than a casual acquaintance of mine. Music had always been an emotional connection of one type or the other. Debussy had offered me refuge from the life that I struggled with for decades before it had taken on the shape of my beloved. Bach and Beethoven and Mozart had long been my salve for most pains, both human and immortal. In over a hundred years, I'd never listened to "Moonlight Sonata" without becoming instantly calmer. And while more modern music did not hold the same emotional refuge for me that classical did, it did offer a soundtrack of sorts to my life with my family.

But this was something entirely different. This was like a battering ram made up of notes and chords and that haunting voice. The name ran through my head with every word that the singer uttered. The tone and tenor sounded like Bella. The whisper of uncertainty in the voice as I listened could have just as easily belonged to my love as to the singer in this band. Everything from the enunciation of the words to the cadence of the song reminded me of my angel. I refused to move so much as an inch as I listened to the words of the chorus in that voice that both haunted me and surrounded me like her loving embrace.

**When you cried**

**I wiped away all of your tears**

**When you screamed**

**I'd fight away all of your fears**

**And I held your hand**

**Through all of these years**

**But you still had**

**All of me**

Every word spoke to me as if it were a direct message. The sophisticated piano accompaniment was sheer perfection to the powerful lyrics. I was nearly swaying in my seat as the raw force of the perfect words washed over me. Verse after verse pushed my very real sense of impossibility higher and closer to the point of incomprehensible realism. I thought I'd heard nothing more perfect to describe what the last three years had felt like, that nothing could be any closer to the exact words to describe my time away from her.

I was wrong.

As I listened to the bridge of the song, I actually fell out of my chair and into the depths of a full blown panic attack.

**I tried so hard**

**To tell myself**

**That you're gone**

**But though you're still with me**

**I've been alone all along**

I didn't hear the remainder of the song that first time. Instead, I fought with every ounce of strength I possessed to regain my composure. My breathing, by my nature an unnecessary act, was so rapid and shallow that had I still been human, I would have no doubt lost consciousness. Every single muscle in my body shook with enough force to rattle my teeth. My jaw was clenched so tightly as the words rushed over my skin that I bit through my tongue, releasing a trickle of venom that flowed over my lip and pooled on the carpet beneath me. The pain that should have accompanied the act was absent in the wake of the flood of emotions and memories that washed over me in a rapid cycle. A soft smile of wariness, a flutter of long chestnut hair against the current of a fan, the vibrant colors of a meadow long ago, the surreal feel of a kiss in the afternoon light, her miniscule weight in my lap as I rocked in her antique chair that was nestled in the corner of her room, her flowing hair sprawled against the wood floor of a ballet studio, a finger with three drops of blood on its tip, a walking cast next to a thin ankle encased in the ribbons of a stiletto heel, a small bed covered in a purple comforter, a van out of control, a small waist beneath my hand, a full bottom lip in its exquisite softness against my mouth. But most prominent…a pair of brown eyes. The infinitely deep pools of warmth and friendship, hesitation and anger, curiosity and understanding, compassion and forgiveness. But the eyes that haunted me the most were the ones filled with pain and love in equal measure the last time I'd looked into them.

Hours or seconds could have passed as I lay prone on the floor, trying desperately to control my own body. When the shivering and rushed breaths finally ceased, I gingerly pushed myself to my knees on the floor. It was unnerving how unsteady I felt as I sat there staring at the innocuous computer as it lay silently on the desktop. It was nothing short of a miracle that I didn't pull the hair in my scalp out given the number of times that I pushed my hands through it as I slowly regained my sensibility. It was a foreign sensation as my muscles ached with the slow burn of release. I felt like a newborn infant as I tentatively stretched my fingers and then my arms, followed by my legs. The first few seconds after I stood, I felt like a colt trying to find its balance.

Finally feeling like I had a modicum of control, I sat back down into the wooden desk chair. Before my rational mind could process the action, I had reached out and clicked on the name of the band. After mere seconds, a new window opened up and even though I didn't yet realize how profoundly the act would change me, I stared at the slight listing of fifteen songs.

EverClear had only one album available for download. The titles of the songs were harmless enough to not recall the stirring of emotions that the first song had. "Whisper" and "Imaginary" did not set my body alight like the words "My Immortal" had. I clicked the button and immediately downloaded the entire album but was not brave enough to listen to it as the download completed. After struggling momentarily to figure out how to transfer the entire collection of songs that I'd purchased during the course of the afternoon, I connected the small white wire into the black device that I knew would be my constant companion. Twenty minutes later, the synchronization completed, I retreated back to the nest I'd made in my closet. I made no attempt to turn on the lights or reposition myself more comfortably. I simply sank into the mass of blankets, pushed the small earphones into my ears and spun the wheel of the MP3 player until I found the word "EverClear".

I did not realize that so much time had passed as I sat in my haven and listened to the songs for the first time. I was mesmerized by them, almost as much as I had been by the woman that I was forcibly reminded of with each note. Over and over I listened and took in the phenomenal imagery that the singer created. I was so immersed in the music that I missed the approaching footsteps as they entered my room.

"Edward? Edward, where are you?"

"In here, Alice. Where else would I be?"

The door opened and the small room was flooded with sunlight. My sister stood in the doorway; her arm loaded down with a stack of magazines and smiled at me wider than I could remember in a very long time.

"What are you doing?" she asked as she folded herself onto the floor so close to me that our knees bumped. "You look so different."

"Just listening."

A part of me wanted to tell her every single thought that had run through my head since she had left with Esme. But a part of me wanted to keep this to myself, at least for a while. I wasn't sure I could really explain how deeply the music I'd found had affected me without sounding like a melodramatic idiot. And I was still completely dumbfounded with how perfect each song was. I wasn't sure I could even find the words. So I decided to just give her the barest information. "I found a new band that I really like."

Her answering smile told me she knew it was much more than just a new band that I liked but that she also wasn't going to push for more information. She reached out and gently took my hand between both of hers.

"I'm glad, Edward. You look more like yourself that I have seen you in so long. It's nice to see signs of my brother. Can I ask you the name of the band?"

"EverClear."

"Wait, why does that sound so familiar?" She looked down at the stack of magazines beside her. After thumbing through the pile briefly, she pulled a copy of "Rolling Stone" from the middle of the pile and passed it to me. "I knew I'd just read that somewhere. That's Jaz's but I'm sure he wouldn't mind you reading through it."

I looked down at the glossy cover and into the airbrushed face of the newest pop sensation. I pulled my eyebrows together for a split second before I caught sight of the bottom right corner. In small stark white block print was the story lead-in:

**EverClear**

**Seattle's Newest Reluctant Rock Stars**

I tried very hard to hide the excitement that flowed through me at the article. It was so strange to feel that particular emotion. It had been so long since I'd felt anything other than pain and longing. The last twenty-four hours had seen a virtual invasion of emotions but it was oddly comforting. I looked into the bright gold eyes of my sister, a coy smirk on her face.

"I'll leave you to it then. Keep the magazine. And I'm glad that your mouth isn't still hurting," she said as she rose and turned without another word.

"Alice?"

"Yeah?"

"Thank you. I know I've been a terrible…"

"Edward, you're welcome. And think nothing of it. I love you."

"I love you too, Alice."

The door had not even shut fully before I was thumbing my way through the magazine in search of the article. Three quarters of the way into it, I found what I was looking for. The first page was a black and white photograph of five people standing with their backs toward the camera. Two women stood in between three men that were each well over six feet tall. All of the musicians had their heads craned upwards and were staring at an old fashioned marquis sign with the band's name in large letters. The caption at the bottom of the picture said that it had been shot on location in Seattle outside an abandoned theater. I stared hard at the backs of the two females, trying to decide which one possessed the voice that had shaken me to my core just hours ago.

One of the women had shoulder length hair and an arm full of tattoos. The other one…well, I immediately decided that she had to be the lead singer. Dark brown hair hung in waves almost to her waist. Both women looked tiny standing beside the long haired leather-clad men but there was something delicate about the one with the longer hair. Something poetic. Something that seemed to radiate the pain of the lyrics that ran through ever song on the album. Without another second of hesitation, I tuned my attention to the article on the next page and began to voraciously read.

_On the Road to Greatness_

_By Taylor Emerson_

_Let me say one thing right off the bat. I fucked up. I did not do my homework for my assignment with EverClear. Instead, I spent the evening drinking with buddies and trying desperately to impress a pretty little blonde. The only prep work that I did prior to actually meeting this enigmatic collection of musicians was a cursory read through the lyrics of the songs on their first album __**Fallen,**__ released two weeks ago on Epic Records. And I did that in the cab on the way to meet them. I didn't listen to the songs or even read over the band's bio. So I was completely unprepared when I walked into the diner four blocks from Epic's Seattle office for my breakfast meeting, wearing a wrinkled shirt and nursing a Tequila headache._

_And let me confess right now. I realize, now, that it was possibly the biggest fuck up of my professional career. Because the band I met might well be the next Rolling Stones._

_Let me try to explain._

_The smell of eggs frying and grease engulfed me as I walked into the restaurant on a typically overcast Seattle day. Aside from a lone patron sitting at the counter, the greasy spoon was completely deserted except for the large round booth at the back of the room. The overlapping conversations and raucous laughter that met me sounded like any group of twenty-something friends having breakfast after a night of partying. But as soon as I rounded the corner and the twenty-somethings came into view, it was clear this was not a generic cast of "Reality Bites" waiting for me. Seven people were crammed into the booth like sardines. But when they saw me, I was grabbed by the wrist and pulled into a section of the seating that had been non-existent just seconds before. As menus were passed around and orders were debated, I got my first good look at EverClear._

_Three giant hulking men filled the bulk of the booth, each sporting very long hair and sleeves of tattoos. The co-founder of EverClear and the band's bassist carried off elbow length dreadlocks as easily as most people wear tee shirts. The frighteningly large drummer and the lanky lead guitarist would be every bit as comfortable at a Hell's Angel's rally as sitting in this diner but are both exceptionally jovial and talkative people. Another man, slightly older and heavier than the three musicians continuously pushed at the black framed glasses that slipped down the bridge of his nose as he listened to the chatter around the circle. This is the soundman and production coordinator for the band. I learned during the course of the three hours I spent in their company that he has been with the band since their second show and is as much a part of the EverClear dynamic as anyone._

_Now, notice, oh faithful readers, that I have yet to use the first name of a single person in the band. That is not an oversight or the result of a particularly bad hangover on my part. By design, the band, while very friendly and open, does not allow their names to be published in any interview. The official word on this it that EverClear is a single unit and not centered on any one member. And while the cohesiveness and closeness of this band is astounding and highly unique in an industry filled with egos the size of arenas, an hour into the interview, I realize that was not the only reason for the lack of names. But I'll get to that in a minute._

_So back to first impressions. Aside from the four men with all the hair and piercings, there was a fifth man at the table with us. Significantly older than anyone else, I was introduced to the band's stylist. Graying hair cut into a severe military flattop and dressed like Versace on acid, after five minutes of conversation you get the distinct impression that in addition to dressing the band, he also acts as warden, priest, conspirator and mother hen as well. Every question I had regarding scheduling or personal habits of the band (you know…who drinks, who smokes, whose in a relationship), this was the man with the answers. Or lack of answers as far as the relationship question went._

_Seated between myself and the stylist was a tiny little woman with jet black hair tipped at the ends with blood red. The band's keyboardist and backing vocalist might be five feet tall and one hundred pounds soaking wet. But make no mistake; this is not a woman with whom to tangle. A confidence that rivals her male band mates radiates off the small figure in waves. She is every bit as tough as the guys…right down to the arm full of tattoos. And the deep voice that is so out of place with her diminutive frame hints at a powerful vocal range._

_This brings me to the last person seated in the round leather booth. I'd nearly missed her when I sat down. Nestled between the band's guitarist and bassist was the lead singer. Startlingly beautiful, the ghost-like figure watched everything going on around her with acuity but never joined in the boisterous conversations. The longer I looked at her, the more phantomish she seemed. A curtain of deep brown hair hangs almost to her waist and is frequently used as a shield against the outside world. There is a concerning quality to the paleness of her skin and the deep rings beneath eyes that seem much older than her almost twenty-one years. These are eyes that have not known a peaceful night sleep in years. These are eyes that seem wise and naive at the same time. But above all, these are eyes that know pain at its deepest, most raw level._

_She's dressed in a thread-bare brown sweater that looks as if it's swallowing her whole. I'm told that she's several inches taller than the other woman at our table but she seems much smaller and frailer. The band treats her very differently as well. There is a very real sense of protectiveness that radiates from them, as if any of the six people seated with her would rip your throat out if you so much as raised your voice to her. It's rather strange to find that after half an hour with her, I find myself feeling the same way about the woman whose voice is so soft when she speaks that I have to strain to hear her. I've never known myself t react to a woman so instantly and I get the feeling that this "sheltering" is a very large part of the dynamic that makes this band so unique. I also realized as I got to know them all, that the anonymity the band insists on was in part due to this gorgeous little thing with the somber expression. Whatever horrendous things lie in her past, her music is how she copes with and hides from them. The ambiguity of her identity is how she has lost herself from whatever, or more probable given the lyrics of her songs, whoever, it is that wounded her enough to write such tragically beautiful lyrics._

_But I will admit readers, that as much as I liked this band, I could not picture them as a heavy metal act. Particularly given the lead singer's painfully shy personality. I learn over breakfast that the girl with the doe eyes is also the band's piano player. She and the bassist wrote the entire album together using nothing more than a dilapidated upright piano and an acoustic guitar. This news is even more amazing when I learned of the background of these two very different but equally passionate composers. _

_The bass player is a classically trained guitarist that has been playing in one form or another since he was in grade school and walked away from a place at Julliard in order to pursue his passion. But he readily admits that writing is a struggle for him. Now check this out…our fair maiden is the exact opposite. She has only been playing the piano for about three years and had never sung a note until just under two years ago. She essentially taught herself how to play and plays solely by ear. She is a musical infant. Yet she "hears" each song and according to her band mates, simply lets them flow out of her. The combination of and cooperation between theses two is, by all accounts, magical._

_But as I've told you, I had no idea what the music actually sounded like. I was much more curious as to their sound after the time I'd spent with them but even as I drove home. I resisted the urge to listen to the CD that I'd been provided by my editor. I decided to instead let myself fully experience EverClear in their self proclaimed "home" onstage. So I spent the afternoon readying myself for a first date with the blonde from the evening before and writing out the details from my interview notes._

_The club was packed when we arrived and picked up my press credentials. A very quiet man lead my date and I to a corded off section for the show. As we walked up the stairs, the young man told us he hoped we didn't mind but we would be sitting with James and Lars, who had already arrived. They were apparently there to watch the show as an audition of sorts. Shrugging and not really understanding, I opened the door and guided my date into the private box on the right side of the stage._

_I knew I had made a grave mistake in my underestimation of EverClear when I came face to face with none other than James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich. Yes, Metallica's very own were the special guests of the evening that my date and I would share the booth with and the "audition" was for the opening act spot on the West coast leg of their upcoming tour._

_Before I could do much more than retrieve my jaw from the ground and introduce myself and my date, the lights went out and show began._

_What I heard and saw was single handedly the most amazing performance I have seen in my entire career as a journalist in the music industry. The shockingly poignant lyrics I'd read earlier in the day came to life in the hands of the band. The fire that each one played with was nothing short of combustible. The sound is heavy and break-necked paced but fits the mood of each song to perfection._

_It's almost as if EverClear has a split personality. The fun and jovial people I had met in that diner were replaced with hard core, head banging thrashers. And the shy quiet girl from this morning? All but gone. In her place is a siren whose voice has more power and raw emotion than any female currently in the music business. She absolutely dominates the room with her every word and every toss of that mane of hair. From the first notes that rang through the darkened room to the last wail as the show closed an hour and a half later, I was completely enraptured with this band and their music._

_Songs like "Whisper" and "Imaginary" paint vivid pictures of a place that is known only to the musicians, while "Going Under" and "Haunted" are thunderous driving homages to some unknown person. There are duets between the two founding members of the band that defy anything else in the music industry. The gravely deep voice of the bass player and the soaring lilt of the tiny girl blend into a powerfully moving tone that begs to be sung along with. It is only a matter of time before their shared voices are heard from coast to coast on every radio station in the country. Mark my words, readers, "Bring Me to Life" or "Broken" will be at the very top of the charts soon. But as quickly as they can bring an audience to their feet and make them willingly give themselves whiplash, they can just as quickly make that same audience want to hang their heads or late-night dial their exes. "Hello" is a somber depressing song that will stay with a listener long after the show is over. But the band's masterpiece and the center of the show is without a doubt a song called "My Immortal"._

_If you've ever been in love or ever had your heart broken, this song will bring tears to your eyes. A single spotlight shines down on the jet black piano for the majority of the song, highlighting the incredible beauty of the singer as the song is performed. You don't have to be on the front row to know that she cries throughout the song. It's evident in her voice as she rises to a climax that not only makes you wish you'd been a better boyfriend or girlfriend but also brings the rest of the band in for the closing. The effect is phenomenal._

_By the time the band left the stage and the lights in the club came up, three things had happened. I'd lost out on any chance I had at a second date with my blonde because I'd virtually ignored her the entirety of the show, EverClear had landed the spot on Metallica's tour and I had become an EverClear groupie. These are the kinds of musicians that change the face of music. And one day, a very long time from now, I have no doubt I will watch as they are inducted into the Music Hall of Fame and tell my grandkids that I got to see them when they were just a struggling act. Yes, they are that good. Yes, the album is that good. And no, they still won't let me publish their names, even after I've blathered all over myself about them._

_Watch the charts, dear readers. Seattle's newest reluctant rock stars are going to be on the rise very soon._

With a smile, I closed the pages of the magazine and tucked it away, beneath the blankets that surrounded me. If the reporter's words were any indication, I was not the only one that was blown away with this band. I spun the wheel of the Ipod and set the device to repeat the album. I shoved the small speakers back into my ears and closed my eyes as I leaned my head back against the wall. When the first notes blared into my ears, I smiled. More widely and more genuinely than I had in three years. The comfort I felt at the memories that demanded entry into my consciousness as I listened to the songs was both welcome and strange. But as the notes poured out and that amazing voice filled my thoughts, I realized that I'd found a way to enable my memories to surround me without turning me into stone.

**I** was, now and forever, EverClear's number one groupie.

**Chapter Notes: You guys know what makes me purr. Let me hear what you all think about the return of everyone's favorite band and any suggestions you have for the next 2 one-shots.**

**Love you guys, **

**Kelly**


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I don't own any part of the Twilight universe but you guys already knew that.**

**Part 2 is in the bag! I hope you guys enjoy this as much as I enjoyed writing it. I got to channel my inner bohemian and my inner gay man all in one chapter…lol. This one does get emotional (big surprise there), so it might be a good idea to grab the hankies.**

**As I told you guys, I am writing this to get the word out about TheFandomGivesBack: Eclipse edition. This is an amazing event that will benefit Alex's Lemonade Stand. I will be one of the authors being offered up and I hope that all my EverClear groupies will get involved some way. It doesn't matter how small a contribution, every penny helps. And on the personal side…I really don't want to be the only unpurchased author…shivers nervously. So if you have a particular scene or event that you always wanted to read about with our favorite rock band and vampires, here's your chance. With very few limitations, I will write WHATEVER YOU WANT ME TO! Smut, drama, smut, emotions, humor…oh, did I mention smut? Whatever you want, it's for sale. I am offering up 3 5000+ chapters on a first come, first serve basis.**

**All the details and the link to the charity event are on my profile or just PM me and I'll send you the information directly. The event will run the end of June (to coincide with a particular movie that I already have my midnight showing tickets to….yippee!). I will be putting out one more prequel scene the week of the auction.**

**As always, let me know what you think and I'll see you soon.**

Chapter 2- Bring Me to Life

ChipPOV

"Oh hell! Look at that. Has to be Versace," Marcus said excitedly at he peered over my shoulder and into the eyes of the newest muse of the reigning Italian design goddess. I had to admit, the suit was stunning, as was the Adonis that wore it.

"How would I look in that?" I asked, knowing already that between the two of us, I was most definitely not the one with the figure for the exquisitely cut suit. I struck my fiercest pose as I lay dramatically against the down pillows stacked behind me in our bed. The incredible man beside me, that I'd shared my life with for more than a half dozen years, was more gorgeous today than he'd been when I'd first met him. Much more so in fact, now that I knew the man behind the dark eyes and deep olive skin.

"Ed…" The sound was so faint, I wasn't sure I had actually heard it.

"Did you hear that?"

"Hear what, Queenie?"

"I thought I heard…nothing, never mind." I returned my attention to the pages of the only fashion magazine that would ever matter, Vogue, of course. A dozen pages after the Greek god in the charcoal gray suit, we were stopped again by the beautiful Michael Kors white jersey knit dress and the waif that it was hanging from.

"Ugh, the hanger would have given it more form. I just don't understand the heroin chic look," Marcus fussed as we tried to find some sign of life in the dead eyes of the model.

"You know who that dress would look beautiful on," I mused, mostly to myself.

"Of course I do but you think everything would look beautiful on her."

I chuckled to myself. He was right, as usual. I did think that nearly every dress I saw would look amazing on my baby girl. She had the body to fill it out in the right places and the face that could bring any garment to life. And the hair. Child, the hair on that girl's head was a masterpiece in and of itself.

"Don't…no…Ed…"

I sat straight up and stared toward the closed door. I was positive that I'd heard it that time. I glanced at the clock on the bedside table. It was just past midnight, so she'd been asleep for just over two hours. It was like clockwork how the girl's mind would attack her. I pulled my legs from underneath the heavy comforter and flinched as my bare feet touched the cold hardwoods below me. I slid my feet into the soft slippers and was reaching for my robe when it came.

"Edward! No…stop…please….Edward!"

The screaming. Bless her heart, the screaming.

Forgetting the robe all together, I tore from the bed and yanked the door open as quickly as I could. I didn't need to look behind me to know that Marcus would be hot on my heels as we tried to maneuver the slick Brazilian wood floors that I'd insisted on. With every step, the screams grew louder and not just because we were nearing the living room. The intensity of her cries were growing and I could hear the sobs wracking her chest as her mind fought to wake her up from the night-terrors she'd lived with since before I'd found her cowering in the corner of a bookstore.

These nightly events had become such routine, that we know kept the "tools of the trade" in the family room rather than where one might expect to find such things as a paper bag, a towel or cold compresses. We'd spent far too much time searching for the bags while she was in the midst of hyperventilating, or the towels to wipe away the cold sweats and tears, or the compresses for those times when we couldn't get to her before she fell and hurt a body part. So now, we simply kept them within five feet of the couch that she slept on most nights.

That was another adjustment we'd made in the couple of months since she'd become part of our lives permanently. Baby girl would not, could not sleep in the bed in the guest room that Marcus had set up for her. She'd tried valiantly and when that had failed, she had tried to hide the fact that she wasn't sleeping at all from the two of us. There was something about being alone, in the bed that she simply couldn't handle. Her mind, always quirky and a lot of the time devastatingly cruel to her, refused to give her any sort of reprieve in the expanse of the bed no matter what we tried.

"Chip, she's crashing," Marcus called to me. He could hear the heavy struggling of her breath as well as I could.

I gripped the frame of the door and literally flung my body through the heavy wooden door that separated the hallway from the large family room. When the door swung open, the room looked very much the same as it had when we'd turned off the lights an hour ago. The fire that flickered under the mantel was smaller but otherwise it was the same. The cracking thunder and the flashes of lightening rolled through the room as the two of us wove our way around the furniture that separated her from us.

Her tiny form on the couch was heartbreaking. She was huddled under the old quilt she'd brought from her room in Forks. On the night after Charlie's funeral, we'd returned to Seattle with nothing more than her two small suitcases, the old quilt and a rocking chair that she refused to leave behind. Not that I'd asked her to leave anything behind. I'd wanted to rent a U-Haul and pack the whole damn house up and bring it here with us. But she'd stubbornly refused. The entire process had been painful to watch. With each item I'd suggested she bring with her; the couch from the living room, the small bed that was in her room or the desk that sat on the far wall, her panic had risen. I knew she would eventually tell me the significance but that horribly overcast day, after she'd buried her father, had not been the time to push. Two months later, we were still no closer to being able to push. If anything, her night-terrors and panic attacks were getting worse. I could see, even under the fabric that she was shaking from head to toe.

And her face. Even twisted in obvious distress, she was still beautiful. But the tears that poured out like water from a faucet and the tight clenched muscles of her forehead made her look much older than her age. Nineteen was much too young to know pain like what we could see carved into the lines around her eyes as we both fell to our knees by the couch.

"Bella, baby, come on," Marcus said softly as he tried to gather her into his arms. Our pattern was always the same. He would hold her as gently as possible while I tried to wake her up.

"Sweetheart, open your eyes for me," I said as I reached for her cheeks.

"No, don't leave…please don't…EDDWAAAARRDDDDDDDD!"

The last scream was so loud that Marcus actually flinched as he slid behind her upper body and locked his arms around her shoulders. I perched myself on the very edge of the cushion and grabbed her face as forcefully as I could without hurting her. I knew, again from experience, that we only had seconds before she would begin to thrash around as her chest completely closed and she blacked out.

"Bella! Honey, wake up." I shook her just slightly and Marcus tightened his grip further, waiting for the moment when her body caved in on itself. But the moment didn't come. Instead, through a torrent of tears that flowed with no conscious thought to them, her eyes fluttered open.

"Chip?" her tiny voice whispered as she looked at me warily.

"I'm here, baby girl. I'm here," I said as I pushed the sweat drenched hair away from her forehead. "It's all over now."

I spoke to her like a wounded animal. It wasn't meant with any disrespect, quite the contrary. This little girl had captured my heart like no one in my life ever had, save for Marcus. Almost instantly, I'd loved her. By the end of our first conversation, I knew that she would always be part of my life. But the first few seconds after her nightmares, a wounded animal is what she most closely related to. She was as likely to tense up and struggle as she was to break down and sob.

This particular night, the sobbing won out.

Without another word, she slumped against my chest and heaved tears of pure anguish. In an all too practiced move, Marcus loosened his grip enough for me to slide my arms around her. When I had her secured against my chest, he hugged to two of us and began a gentle rocking motion. The violence of the storm that raged outside the windows was minute compared to the violence of her pain and its physical expression. The words of comfort that we both whispered to her fell on deaf ears as the agony she carried erupted in a torrent of razor sharp sobs. I glanced at the clock and realized that she had been crying for nearly half an hour with no real change in the intensity. If she kept it up, she would make herself vomit or pass out. Marcus seemed to realize it also because he slowed his rocking and tried to pry her off my chest.

"Sweetheart, you've got to calm down," he said lovingly. "You don't want to make yourself sick. Please, honey."

"He's right, baby girl. Come on, look up at me," I encouraged as I tilted her head up so that I could see her eyes. The whites were a nastily painful red and her lids were swollen almost to the point of obscuring the deep brown irises. Her face was flushed a deep crimson from the amount of energy she'd expended, both while she dreamt and as she tried to calm herself. Her nose was running as she sniffed and huffed in an attempt to bring herself under control. Without really thinking, I curled the cuff of my pajama top over my hand and wiped at the skin between her nose and top lip.

"Ew, that was kind of gross," she said with the tiniest smile. She knocked my hand away with her own and wiped at her nose like a toddler with her forearm.

"There she is," Marcus laughed as he leaned back against the couch, pulling her with him and tucking her against his side as I reached for the drawer underneath the coffee table and pulled out a small washcloth and a bottle of water. I tipped the open bottle into the material and soaked a small section before I held the bottle out to her. Tentatively, as if it might bite her, she took the plastic from my hand and drank a small sip. I settled back beside the two of them and slowly wiped at the tear tracks that marred her cheeks.

"Oh, my sweet girl. What are we gonna do with you?"

"I'm sorry I woke you…."

"Stop, Bella. That's not what I meant," I admonished as lightly as possible. It never failed that we went through this conversation. "You know that. I'm just worried sick about you."

"We both are," my love said as he kissed the top of her head.

"People need sleep, honey. I wish you would let me try and give you something to help."

"Chip, you know I don't like medicines."

"I do. But I am talking about something over-the-counter, not something hard. We have to find a way for you to sleep through the night. Human bodies need sleep to function."

As soon as the words left my mouth, I regretted them. I watched, ashamed of my inattention at my own words, as a dark shadow of grief crossed her face. Her bottom lip trembled and the tears that had nearly subsided multiplied before my eyes. Although Marcus couldn't see the reaction as I did, he knew by the tensing of her body exactly what she was thinking. With his free hand, he pulled her head against his chest and rubbed a soothing trail across her cheekbone with his fingers.

"Sweetheart, I'm sorry," I begged her. "I wasn't thinking."

"It's not your fault, Chip. I'm just stupid and overly sensitive."

"No, you're not. You are an incredible woman that got shit on by life. I just want to help you find a way to clean up, so to speak."

"What a gross analogy," Marcus laughed. After just a second, Bella joined him. I didn't care that they were laughing at me, so long as she didn't deteriorate into near hysterics again. She took another, much longer sip of water before sucking in a deep breath.

"Thank you both. Again," she said as she wiped her face angrily

"Anytime, baby girl. Anytime. I just wish we could find a way to make helping unnecessary."

"So do I, for that matter," she said sarcastically.

"How about some hot tea?"

"Okay, but Earl Grey this time please. That chamomile is disgusting."

"Will do, sweetheart. Marcus, can you throw a couple more logs in the fire please. It's cold in here."

With a quick kiss on the end of her nose, we both pushed off the couch and headed to our respective tasks. I was still felling just awful about my "human" slip. I reached for the kettle where it sat on the back burner of the stove. It was useless to put it away. Whether it was for Bella to help her sleep or for Marcus to help him relax, the poor thing got used nearly every day. As I filled it with water, I glanced at my girl on the couch. The panic attack had calmed but what filled the void was nearly as bad. She looked absolutely dejected. In moments when she thought no one was paying attention, the tiring job of hiding what she really felt inside would slip for just a moment. And when it did, the stunning girl with the infinitely wise eyes would give way to a soul that was tortured.

Anger flared in my heart at the thought of the source of that torture. It wasn't at Charlie. Charlie's death had been devastating for her. When I'd gotten the call that she was at the station and didn't have anyone she could call to take her home, I'd literally dropped phone and ran out the door of the boutique I was in with my client without a word. The thought of her alone and hurting and scared was more than I could take. I had made more than half the drive before I became rational enough to call Marcus and fill him in on what had happened. As horrible as that had been, it wasn't his death that put that pleading look in her eyes. My anger wasn't even for Renee. When the time had come for her to finally put her daughter's needs ahead of herself, she'd not stepped up to the plate. She'd hidden from the difficult decisions and motherly comfort behind a façade of being needed in Florida. It had hurt Bells deeper than she would admit that her mother wasn't there for either her or her father. But she was so used to Renee being the immature, self-centered, moron that she was, she simply accepted that her mother would, once again, not be there for her in one of her darkest times. It had been weeks since she'd heard from her and I suspected that as time wore on, she would hear from her less and less often. Renee seemed to have simply washed her hands of the responsibility of being a parent the moment that Bella had stepped foot onto the plane bound for Washington.

No, my anger wasn't for either Charlie or Renee.

It was solely for him.

To say that I'd been shocked when I'd put two and two together would be akin to saying that baby girl had bad dreams. Never, in a million years, would I have ever thought possible that the man I'd heard about for years from Tanya, the one and only man to ever out-right reject her seduction, would turn out to be the same man that had crushed the soul of my Bella. From all Tanya had said, he was a bit of a prude and somewhat arrogant in his holier-than-thou attitude but was essentially a good man. That little fact turned out to be the greatest misconception of all time.

Anyone that could do to her what he'd done, so callously and coldly throw away such a devoted and all-consuming love, was anything but a good man. He'd taken a vibrant special heart and mangled it until the only thing it was capable of feeling was raw pain. I'd never met Bella prior to his departure but I could see all that she was beneath the hardened layer of numbness she'd developed as a survival method. And how anyone that could know her, much less claim to love her, could throw that away was beyond me.

I didn't realize I was letting my anger show until the noise of the full kettle as I slammed it onto the burner. When the water splashed my hand, I realized that if I didn't rein it in, she would hear me. And my girl was far too perceptive to try and bullshit. She'd just gotten to the point of breathing normally and I certainly didn't want to give her cause to get upset again.

I had just pulled the teabag from the cupboard and was reaching for the teacups when an incredibly loud knock on the door startled me so badly that I nearly dropped the bone china saucer. Over and over the noise hammered, each strike getting more and more thunderous and progressively more obnoxious.

"Hold on! I'm coming," I heard Marcus yell from the living room before muttering under his breath "what is the damn emergency? It's one o'clock in the morning for Christ's sake."

Given the sheer intensity of the bangs against the door, I figured it was probably a smart idea to go to the door with Marcus. Seattle was a safe enough city most of the time and we'd had no problems with our building but it was better to be safe than sorry. I met him in the small hallway that lead to the front door and chuckled at his annoyed expression he wore. Neither of us spoke. Between the constant beating against the door and the constant thunder that rumbled through the night sky, it would have been pointless anyway.

But just as I reached for the handle, I stopped in my tracks. Just discernable over the clutter of noise was the tinkling of the piano keys. Both of us looked at the other one in shock, even as the knocking continued. I crept back down the hallway as quietly as I could and peered around the corner into the living room.

Sitting in front of the old upright piano that Marcus had inherited from his aunt in Savannah was Bella. The rickety bench looked so unsteady that had she weighed more than the barely hundred pounds that she did, it would have surely collapsed. But what thrilled me, was her reflection in the mirror that hung on the wall just above the ancient instrument. There was not a trace of the despair or sadness anywhere to be found. The eyes that had, just minutes ago, been so burdened by the pain she carried were absolutely alive with a mixture of emotions. Her mouth was turned up in the smallest hint of a smile as she stared at the keys. I also realized that the notes coming out of the piano were not the disjointed tinkling of someone simply messing around at the keys. There was a clearly defined pattern, or more appropriately a rhythm, filling the air.

I leaned against the door jam and simply watched. The claps of thunder and the hammering on the door completely disappeared from any conscious thought as I watched my baby girl play. It was the first sign of inner peace I'd seen in those beautiful eyes literally since the day I'd met her. The effect it had on her entire body, on her entire being, was astounding. She looked strong and powerful. And completely serene. The frail body that Marcus and I both worried over seemed alive and energetic as her fingers splayed over the keys in a sure and confident pattern.

And the music itself was breath-taking. The melody was haunting, with an incredibly distinct thread of sadness that wove in and out of the notes. But it was also, clearly, a love song. There was an air of adoration in the song she played that made my heart swell for my Marcus. It wasn't difficult to pinpoint who the song was about for her.

"Dude! Did you guys move Jeffrey Dahmer in here or what? What the fuck is the screaming all about?"

"Sorry, buddy."

The vision across the room from me, glowing in the fire light and the tranquility of the piano, was interrupted by a voice I knew well. JP lived in the apartment above us with his girlfriend Heidi. We'd met them the day we moved in and I instantly liked her. Heidi was a warm, snarky reed of a girl with a razor sharp wit and a heart of gold. JP was, on the outside, like something from a nightmare. Dreadlocks that hung below his shoulders, both arms full of tattoos and a face full of various piercings clung to his incredibly tall and lanky frame. The effect was disturbing at first sight. That was, until he opened his mouth. A deep Southern twang introduced an absolutely hysterical man with dirty streak a mile wide and an open honesty that was disarmingly charming. For the last year, we'd spent a fair amount of time with them both and considered them to be very good friends

"JP, we're sorry," I started as I turned back toward the door. "We've gotta guest with us for a while and well…"

"Naw, man. I ain't here to bitch. Just checking in on ya'll. We heard the shrieking and my old lady got worried. Everything cool?"

There was genuine concern on his face as he looked back and forth between Marcus and me for some sign of injury or trouble. Once satisfied that neither of us was bleeding or missing a limb, he grinned that wicked smile that to define him and stepped into the foyer, closing the door behind him. That was another endearing thing about the gothic couple upstairs. Once they had decided that we were all friends, they seamlessly meshed their lives with ours. They would walk in without an invitation, go to the kitchen if hungry or say whatever it was that was on their minds as soon as the thought was processed. But it wasn't in a rude or obnoxious manner. They became part of our family, as we became part of theirs.

"Everything's fine," Marcus answered as we all slowly shuffled toward the living room. Just as we reached the doorway of the kitchen on our right, the teapot I'd set on the burner began to screech. The shrill noise made all three of us jump and then laugh uncomfortably. I moved as quickly as I could to the kettle to shut it up before it interrupted or distracted her and pulled it off the heat.

"Tea, JP?"

"Holy shit, that sounds so fuckin' proper," he laughed. "Yeah, hit me." He watched as Marcus pulled two more cups and saucers from the cupboard like he was performing surgery. "So what has you two up screamin' and makin' tea in the middle of the night?"

"That would be my fault," a tiny voice whispered from the doorway. We all turned to find Bella standing in the giant door frame, once again looking tiny and frail. Her eyes were downcast and her arms were folded tightly around her chest, something she did with incredible frequency. The gesture often looked like she was trying to hold herself together. Or keep her heart inside her chest.

"My, my. What do we have here boys," JP said with a leer that made my spine prickle.

I walked over and slid my arm around Bella's shoulders protectively. It wasn't that I thought JP would harm her but in her present condition and given his penchant for inappropriate jokes, I was positive that she wasn't prepared to meet him without backup.

"JP, I'd like you to meet a friend of ours. This is Bella. She'll be staying with us for quite a while," I finished with a kiss to her temple.

"Well, it's nice to meet you Miss Bella," he said with a Rhett Butler style bow. "And what brings you to our fair city?"

As if to punctuate his smart-assed sense of humor, the loudest crack of thunder of the night rang through the apartment with enough force to rattle the teacups where they sat on the counter. Nervous laughter echoed off the granite countertops of the kitchen as we all waited to see if the power would fail.

"I'm sorry if I bothered you," she said in that same small pained voice. She shifted under my arm and turned to leave the room. After only a single step, she turned back and said it was nice to meet him before she scurried out of the room. She never once looked up at him during the course of the conversation.

"Quiet kid," JP muttered with seriousness that I had never heard from his normally boisterous mouth.

"Quiet would be an understatement," Marcus said gently as he stared into the empty space that she'd vacated. The concern that was clearly etched on his face was apparent even to JP, who studied him in the soft light. With a sharp intake of breath, Marcus faced JP and squared his shoulders. "Her father was murdered a couple of months ago. He was a policeman in a tiny little town a couple of hours from here. Never expected anything like that to happen in a city with less than five thousand people."

"Fuck me," he said sympathetically. It was comical how even trying to be nice or empathetic; he still had the language of a sailor.

"That's not all of it," I added, some of my anger returning to my voice. "She wasn't in the best of places emotionally even before Charlie's death. Charlie was her dad," I added as an explanation for our guest.

I was quite sure that the conversation would have gone on but the sweet chimes of the piano once again filled the night air. All of us not only grew silent but perfectly still as well. It was almost as if we moved so much as a centimeter, the hypnotic melody would disappear. I cut my eyes to JP and was shocked to find that he was smiling from ear to ear. It was the widest grin I'd ever seen from him. He was staring a hole in the wall that separated us from the living room and the muse that had us all under her spell.

"I knew I heard a piano," JP said almost to himself. "I told Heidi I heard it. That's why I finally decided to come downstairs."

With a small clatter, he set his empty cup on the counter and began to make his way out of the kitchen, almost like he was drawn to the siren's song. When he reached the hallway, he turned back to face Marcus and me and with a mischievous smile asked "will she kick me in the balls if I go in there?"

"I have no idea. But if you upset her, I'll kick you in the balls," I said only half joking.

He disappeared down the dimly lit hall and Marcus and I stood there looking dumbly at each other. I could tell, just by the look on his face that he was wrestling with the same thing I was. On the one hand, JP was a good guy and had seemed genuinely touched by Bella. But on the other hand, JP was, well, JP. I moved as slowly as if a ticking bomb was sitting in the middle of the room as I crept my way out of the kitchen and peered into the living room. This had the potential to be a serious mistake. Bella was so fragile emotionally. I had the feeling that, even before the last year of her life, she had never been very comfortable around new people. But now…well, even people she was familiar with had tendency to startle her into silence.

Quiet as a mouse and with Marcus hot on my heels, I slid my feet down the hardwood flooring, too scared to even pick my feet up just in case a floor board squeaked. I stopped a good foot before I reached the living room, so abruptly that Marcus ran smack dab into my back. With a chuckle, he slid his hands around my waist and hugged me to his chest, offering me the kind of comfort I could only wish for my girl.

The scene before us was like something out of an alternate universe. The only light in the room was the small lamp by the couch and the flickering firelight. Bella was seated at the piano, playing softly but intently. Her reflection in the mirror, once again, showed a girl that was almost a stranger in her tranquility. Her eyes were glowing with emotion and there was the smallest smile on her lips. JP was sitting just behind her on the arm of the couch, watching her as intently as I'd ever seen one person look at another. For the span of a few minutes, no one moved. No one made a sound. Aside from the gorgeous music that echoed off the high ceilings, the only noise was the constant beating of the rain against the window panes. I held my breath as she brought the song to a close and shut her eyes tightly, the small smile growing into a full smile. It was the first time in nearly a year I'd seen her smile and I felt my eyes tear up at the magnificent sight.

"That bridge is fucking incredible," JP whispered.

It was obvious that Bella had not expected anyone, let alone the strange man she'd just met, to be watching her. Her body jerked almost painfully at her shock and she wheeled around on the bench so quickly that I feared it would crumble beneath her. Her eyes were wild with shock and something very akin to fear as she stared at the man just two feet away from her.

"It's beautiful," JP started again, either oblivious to her panic or choosing to ignore it. "But that bridge is something else. Would you play it again?"

"I…I don't play."

"Well, would you not play that again? Please?"

I was positive that she was going to have another panic attack. The sheer terror written on her face was almost enough to send me into one. But just as I had decided to intervene on her part, she turned toward the piano and raised her hands. Her reflection did not show the calm that it had just moments ago but it also wasn't pinched in uneasiness either. Silently, JP slid from his perch and folded himself onto the stone hearth, just inches away from her. His gaze never left her hands but he was grinning like he'd won the lottery. With absolute precision, she replayed the song note for note exactly the same as she had every time. But the most shocking part was as she finished, she turned to face him and gave him the smallest hint of a grin.

"That is absolute perfection," he said as if they were the only two people in the world at that moment.

"Thank you."

"How long ago did you write it?"

This stunned me. Until tonight, I'd not known that Bells even played. But the idea that she had composed the beautiful piece was simply astounding.

"A few months ago," she said nervously, not looking up at him.

"How long have you been not playing?"

"A little less than a year."

"Bloody fucking hell," he said loudly. "You taught yourself, didn't you?"

"Sort of."

"You wrote the lyrics to it also, didn't ya?"

She didn't answer him but slowly got up from her perch and moved toward the seldom used bedroom. She was gone less than a minute before she reappeared, clutching a spiral bound notebook against her chest. She stood in front of the now blazing fire and stared blankly at it for a long time before she opened the notebook and held it out to him.

"Holy God," Marcus whispered from behind me as we both watched incredulously from the hallway. "Did you know any of this?"

I shook my head "no". JP studied the pages in front of him like a scientist before he turned to her yet again and asked her to play it one more time. She acquiesced to his request immediately. It was evident that s he listened to the music that poured from her soul that he was reading the words from her heart in perfect time with the notes. When she finished the song, she turned to him, her thumb wedged between her teeth as she bit her nail anxiously.

"That's fucking beautiful," he said reverently. He looked up at her and I noticed that the foul-mouthed lanky man I'd known for a year had tears in his eyes. "Thank you for sharing that with me Bella."

"I've never let anyone else read it. I don't know why I did tonight."

"Well that makes me all the more appreciative. Thank you for trusting me with it. I can honestly say I've never heard anything like it and I do this for a living."

"You're a musician?"

"Most of the time. But I've never written anything like this." His face lit up like a kid at Christmas. "You seriously have no musical training?" The awe in his voice was unabashed. It was clear to anyone who looked at him that he was genuinely impressed with what he had both read and heard.

"I took lessons a long time ago but only for a little under two years. But I haven't touched a piano in years until about a year ago."

I watched, helplessly, as her eyes filled with tears and her forehead tightened painfully as her memories were pulled forth. Her breath became shuddering gasps as she tried to control her emotions with little success. I glanced at JP, who sat silently as he watched her fall apart in front of his eyes. There was no trace of anything other than empathy anywhere on his face.

"You're still in love with him, aren't you?"

Marcus groaned behind me at his words and Bella's head shot up like he'd told her she had just grown a third eye. The sadness was replaced by abject fear. Her bottom lip trembled almost as violently as her hands did and the breaths that had been uneven became nonexistent.

"We've lost her," Marcus said as he stepped from behind me and began moving toward the quivering figure frozen on the piano bench. I had no sooner moved to follow him when JP sprang into action.

"Whoa there little bit. It's okay, I promise." He rose up on his knees until he was eye level with her and grasped her face between his massive hands. With a gentleness I didn't know he was capable of, he slowly stroked his thumbs over her cheeks, wiping away the tears that were flooding from her eyes. "I didn't mean to upset you, I'm sorry. Shhh….its okay. We don't have to talk about it ever again."

What happened next shocked the hell out of both Marcus and me. JP wrapped his lanky arms around her entire body and pulled her close to his chest. But more astonishingly, she let herself be folded into his embrace. Her tiny hands fisted the material of his shirt and she sobbed into his chest, all the while, his arms were wrapped protectively around her. After a minute or so, he pulled her tiny body into his lap and began to rock her back and forth. I crept around the back of the couch as quietly as I could toward the strange scene. As I neared the arm of the couch, I heard him talking quietly to her.

"…I know it hurts. Just let it all go. When my Mama died, I thought I'd never be whole again. But it will get better. Just let it out. We gotta find a way for you to let all that hurt out. We'll find it together. That's too much hurt for such a tiny little thing to keep all bottled up."

I was dumbfounded at how tender he was being with her. JP was a lot of things and most of them were good but tender wasn't generally the first word that came to mind when you thought of him. But watching him rock her and hug her was beautiful and seemed very natural. I felt Marcus' hand on my shoulder a second before I felt his breath on my neck.

"Who would have ever thought…," he said with a small chuckle. "I think I better go call Heidi."

"That's probably a good idea."

I listened to his footsteps as he crossed the room once again and then his muted voice as he called our neighbor at nearly two o'clock in the morning. I didn't envy him the conversation that would try to explain what was going on down here but I was grateful to him for trying to explain it. The entire time he spoke in whispered words, I watched to Bella and JP in their embrace. Her tears had not slowed or even abated slightly. But neither had his rocking or his comforting words.

"…okay, the door will be unlocked. Just come on in," Marcus finished appreciatively. After just a few seconds, he rejoined me at the end of the couch, his arm wrapped around my waist. With a quick peck on my temple to told me that she was coming downstairs and that she was, surprisingly, not shocked by the events of the evening.

"Well, she would be the only one," I said as I watched JP gently ease his hands around to Bella's shoulder and lean her back enough to look at her.

She looked awful. Her eyes were painfully red from the sheer volume of tears that she'd shed. Her hair was matted around her face in giant tangles. Her shoulders and hands were still shaking violently and she looked mortified as she stared into the concerned eyes of the virtual stranger whose lap she sat in.

Very slowly, he raised his hand toward her face. It almost looked like he was approaching a wounded animal. With tiny strokes he moved a piece of hair that had cemented itself to the side of her face away and tucked it behind her ear. He repeated the action on a couple more errant clumps before he chuckled.

"Hmm….blood shot eyes, red cheeks, and snotty nose. I gotta say little one, you look like fucking hell," he finished with a laugh.

And for the first time since she'd moved to Seattle, Bella laughed.

"I'm sorry," she said with a huge sniff as she moved to wipe her nose on the sleeve of her shirt. "I don't know what's wrong with me…JP, is it?" She slid herself backwards out of his lap and onto the floor in front of him.

"Nothing to apologize for little bit. A woman crying is a natural reaction to meeting me. Don't know if that's a compliment or not but it happens more often than you might think."

She laughed again, louder this time as he extended his hand toward her. She moved to shake his hand but he surprised her by grabbing her fingers and covering them with his other massive hand. She looked at him, the surprise evident, and was met with a very serious face.

"Can I show you something, Bella?"

"Yes."

The knock at the door startled all of us and a nervous laughter filled the room as Marcus left my side to let in Heidi. She walked into the living room dressed in a black bathrobe and carrying an acoustic guitar under her arm. She smiled much more warmly at the two of them huddled in front of the fireplace than I had expected her to. There was no trace of jealousy at their closeness, or wariness at the strange but beautiful girl or even irritation with the ridiculously late hour. The only thing her face showed was humor and immense love. She crossed the room and knelt down beside the two of them, placing the guitar on the floor beside JP.

"I'm Heidi," she said as she maternally placed her hand on Bella's cheek. "It's a pleasure to meet you; Chip and Marcus have told me a lot about you. I'm right upstairs if you ever need anything." She turned her attention to JP as she steadied her balance by placing her hand on his folded knee. "Behave young man and don't keep everyone in the building up all night." She finished with a quick kiss and then turned to leave. Just as she reached the door, she turned around and with a wicked smile, she said "If he gets to be too big a pain in the ass, call me and I'll come drag his sorry ass home."

"That's my girl," JP said with pride as he stared at the door she had just disappeared through. "Best thing in my whole damn world."

"She's beautiful," baby girl said sadly. The tone of her voice caught not only my attention but JP's as well.

"She is," he said quietly. "But even more so on the inside. Hey," he questioned when he saw the tears on the tips of her eyelashes. "Don't cry, little bit. I'm gonna try and show you something that really fucking helped me through the worst times."

She watched in fascination as he picked up his guitar and situated it on his still crossed knees. He strummed the chords absent mindedly for a second before he turned his attention back to her.

"If you could have anything, right this second, what would it be?"

Her answer was so muted it was a wonder that he heard her at all.

"Him."

"That's what I thought. Now, without him…um, by the way, does 'him' have a name?"

"Ed…" she cleared her throat and then tried again. "His name is…its Ed…"

"Edward," Marcus said more viciously than I'd ever heard. "His name is Edward but please don't say it around me more than you have to." The venom that laced his voice was more acidic than I'd ever heard from him and his face had hardened into an angry mask as he spoke of the man that had nearly destroyed our Bella.

"Wow! I didn't know that you could even get pissed off Mark," he finished with a giggle.

"JP, I have asked you repeatedly not to call me 'Mark'" Marcus said with a very obvious quirked eyebrow that clearly indicated just how annoying he found the nickname.

"I know. I just like to watch you get all worked up," he snorted while mimicking the cocked eyebrow. "Okay," he said, turning his attention once again to the ghost on the floor in front of him. "What we're gonna do is pour all that hurt and all those tears into this," he said, motioning to his guitar, "and that," he nodded to toward the piano.

She looked at him like he was speaking a foreign language. Had she not looked so pitiful, it would have been funny. She sat motionless for almost a full minute before she spoke.

"But, JP, I'm not a musician."

"The fuck you're not. I heard you play and I read your lyrics and whether or not you know it, you are a musician. That song is fucking astounding and I'll bet there is a lot more in there where that came from. For me, when I'm feeling really shitty, music wakes me up…"

"Inside," she finished for him. The amazement that was written on both their faces was, without a doubt, the most beautiful thing I'd seen in a long time. The both looked alive in that second and more than that, they were completely in tune with each other. They couldn't be any more opposite but there was something between the two enigmatic people I was watching that defied reason and sanity in its utter perfection.

"Exactly," he said smiling like a fool. He nodded his head toward the piano again and this time she followed his lead. With more grace than I knew she had in her body, she rose and slid herself back onto the piano bench. With a heart breaking tenderness, she ran her fingers over the keys. It wasn't hard enough to make any sounds but the act was like watching a touch between a child and its long lost parent.

"Save me from myself," she whispered to the keys. Her plea was as much a prayer as a request.

It was that second that I knew she would make it out the other side of the awful blackness that had consumed her since the day we'd met. It wasn't going to be easy and it certainly wasn't going to be quick but eventually, she would regain herself. I rose from the couch to leave the two of them alone, feeling confident for the first time that she was going to find that inner strength that I'd known all along was there. I walked back toward the bedroom, where Marcus had already begun to turn down the covers, feeling lighter than I had in a very long time. Just as I pushed the door close, I heard the sweetest sound….

Floating through the air was the comforting sound of guitar strings, the tinkling of piano keys and the combination of laughter between the two extraordinary people that I knew would be a part of my life, and each others, for a very long time to come.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: I don't own any part of the Twilight universe but you guys already knew that.**

**As promised, here's part 3 of our prequel. This one was by far the hardest to write. I really hope you guys all like it.**

**TheFandomGivesBack, Eclipse edition kicks off tomorrow (the 26****th****) at noon. As I've told you guys, I am going to be a part of this incredible cause and I am very proud to be included in the list of authors. All proceeds go to Alex's Lemonade Stand. Every single donation, no matter how small, is helpful and very much appreciated. I hope to see lots of familiar names on the Bidders listings. But for all the die-hard groupies, this is your chance to see any scene that you've ever wanted or imagined from everyone's favorite band. If you need help finding the website, just PM me and I'll get you there straight away.**

**Playlist:**

**October-Evanescence**

**Now, one more thing. There is another song quoted in this chapter. I'm not going to tell you who they are just yet. Let me just say this…you are going to want to find this band. Otherwise the next EverClear story will be….ahh? What's that? Yes, I said the next EverClear story. I am going to do a third full installment with our favorite band. But anyone that guesses correctly in a review or PM….I'll send you a little sneak preview of what the story will be about!**

**Lastly, a couple of people made this chapter possible. As always, my darling baby girl, Michele, Shannon and Heather…thanks for everything you guys give me when I am obsessed with EverClear. And Ohob? Jesus, don't even know where to start except to say thank you from the bottom of my heart.**

October

Six months after Bella's 20th birthday

APOV

"I'd askif you were still awake if I didn't know that you had to be," that gorgeous Southern twang drawled in my ear. I felt the heat of his breath as it washed over my neck and shoulder. The comfort of his body pressed up against my back as I stared out the window and into the storm was all encompassing, particularly in the wake of the visions I'd been having all day.

"I wish I could sleep," I replied as I rolled onto my back with a sigh and settled into the soft mattress below us. I looked hard into the shining amber eyes of the man that was my everything and sighed happily. Friend, lover, husband, mate, mentor, student…it didn't matter what I called him. They all equaled my home and my heart. It didn't matter that he was the most gorgeous man I'd ever laid eyes on. His dark blond curls and sculpted chest were just icing on the cake. It was his heart and his brilliant mind that had won my heart the first time I'd seen him in my visions. I'd known, without ever speaking a word to him, that the scars that covered his body hid the soul of a poet from nearly everyone that he'd come into contact with. But with a single slow "yes ma'ma," that hard fierce exterior had melted away to reveal a romantic passionate man that I would spend my eternity living with and loving.

"I know, Ali. It's bad today."

"You know me so well."

"Darlin', I don't need any special gifts to know what has you so…so…weighted today. Is it one or both of them?"

"It's both of them," I said with another heavy sigh as I looked back out the window. I watched as two rain drops raced each other down the window pane. The path that both drops took twisted and turned toward each other every couple of seconds but never intersected. Very much like the two people that had run through my head all afternoon.

"You gonna tell him," Jaz whispered as he placed a very soft kiss just below my ear. A large part of me felt guilty for relishing these moments between the two of us because it was only during the extended absences of my brother that they were even possible.

It was painful to watch him try and hide his precarious emotional state from everyone. The stone-faced nonexpressional façade was just that. A façade. He thought he was being strong and not showing everyone just how agonized he was. He'd even said as much on the rare occasions that someone asked him about it. But we all knew. It was nearly impossible not to see the extraordinary amount of emotions that colored his face every time he interacted with someone in the family. After the first year or so, he would simply leave the house for extended periods of time. He said it was to give us some space but we all knew the real reason. It was because it was too much for him to bear.

For that reason, when Edward was home, all of us tried very hard to limit the amount of affection we showed with our mates. Even Rosalie could not stand the horror struck look in his eyes at even the smallest touch between any of the couple that resided in the Cullen household. But the situation was even more complex than that for Jasper and I. It was nearly impossible for my husband to feel anything outside of his pain if Edward was anywhere near him, regardless of the act that he tried to put on. Add to that the immense guilt that we constantly carried in terms of our brother and romance was at the very bottom of the list for both us.

"No, I don't think so," I said, returning my gaze to the warm eyes of love. It had been nearly six months since I'd told Edward of my visions concerning Bella and nearly a year since I'd told him about them voluntarily. He was so lost in his anguish and loneliness that his normally observant eye for my visions had been clouded. I'd managed to convince him that she had dropped off my radar. It was a feat that I'd thought impossible until two years ago. But his spiral into blackness had taken hold of him so completely that he'd been unable to tell when they hit.

And for that, at least, I was grateful.

As horrendous as it was to watch Edward and his all consuming grief, watching him try to handle a vision of Bella was excruciating. Even the simplest glimpses of her sent him into full blown panic attacks. He'd fallen to his knees at an image of her staring out of her window into the snowy forest. His breathing had turned to hyperventilation when he'd caught a split second of her leaning her forehead against a metal locker, crying.

Given his reactions, I was positive that he could not possibly handle what I had been seeing for the last several months. And my husband had agreed with me after I discussed it with him. Bella, wherever she was, looked horrendous. She was beyond thin and pale as death. But the worst part of each and every vision was the broken defeated look in her dark eyes. And if my interpretation was correct, my brother wasn't the only one that was suffering from panic attacks. Bella seemed to be unraveling as visibly as Edward was. The visions were not something I wanted in my head but they simply **could** **not** be in Edward's. Jasper and I were fairly certain that he was nearly suicidal as it was and the haunting images would have surely pushed him over the edge.

"That's an awful heavy weight for you to carry alone, Ali. Are you sure?"

The concern was evident as he spoke. I knew how much he worried about the precarious balancing act that I was attempting. But I just didn't feel like I had a choice. It was hard enough for Edward to function on any given day, much less on a "Bella" day.

"I am but thank you, Jaz. I love you."

"I love you too, Darlin'." He leaned down, his rock hard chest pressing me into the mattress and kissed me. The kiss started out slowly and sweetly but quickly turned more passionate. He pressed his weight against me as he slid his arms around my upper body.

I felt the muscles in my shoulders and back relaxing into the sheets as my husband's touches became bolder. But as had been the pattern of the entire day, just as I reached to pull him closer, the visions interrupted.

My visions were so much a part of who I was that their appearances didn't even faze me anymore. But physically, it was still an uncomfortable sensation. It was very similar to a human loosing consciousness as far as I could tell, not having the memory myself. A blackness overtook my vision from the outside of my peripheral view and slowly closed in until only a single ray of light was visible. And inside the "ray" of light was the scene. It was very close to watching a movie. I could both hear and see what I was picturing in most cases. With Edward, it was always as clear as if I'd actually been watching him. With Bella, it was becoming more difficult. Hazier. I couldn't hear her most of the time and for that I was thankful. Because the rare time that I could, she was screaming my brother's name.

My body always followed suit to the tunnel vision. It was an odd, disconnected feeling. My muscles all felt detached and light, while my control over my own body became nonexistent. As a vampire, the sensation took the form of absolute stillness until the vision passed. I had a suspicion that the reaction hadn't been very different as a human.

And while my husband, recognizing what was happening, patiently waited, the vision of Edward played before me. My brother, always so beautiful, looked hideous. He'd left our home outside Crater Lake three days ago to go for a walk. This was his code for getting away from the couples in our household. It was both relieving and guilt-inducing when he did this because while we all missed our spouses and the small expressions of affection, we all knew the terrible cost for him.

But as I "saw" him, his appearance stunned me. He was drenched from head to toe. His eyes were a dangerous shade black. But thirst wasn't what made his situation so tentative, although I was sure that played a part in his physical appearance. No, the blackness that filled and surrounded his normally gorgeous eyes was from utter and complete despair. I watched, helplessly, as he walked uncertainly into the lobby of a rather shabby hotel. A small backpack that was slung over his right shoulder told me that he'd known he'd be gone for a while when he'd left.

A small man appeared from behind a doorway set behind a long desk. An ancient computer and a telephone that had obviously seen better days sat to the right of the man that was clearly the manager or night clerk of the rundown inn, although he gave off no air of authority in his stained white tee shirt and his disheveled black hair. As he wiped his stubby fingers across the front of the shirt, he finally acknowledged my brother standing in front of him with a hack of a cough.

"Yeah?"

"I...um, I need a room."

Edward's voice broke my heart. It was small and unsure; the product of having not been used in a very long time and of him not trying to force what he thought was a normal tone. He seemed so young, so lost as he spoke to the man. But above all, he seemed so desolate.

"How old are you? You don't look…"

"I'm too old," Edward responded before the man could finish his sentence. He dropped the soaked backpack on the counter with little thought to the puddle it would leave behind and fished out his wallet. He showed the clerk the ID quickly but I noticed the man's eyes widen as he, no doubt, caught sight of the black credit card also visible.

"Alright," he said unconcerned. "How long you staying?"

"I'm not sure. Couple of days."

"I ain't got but a couple of rooms left and they're all on the same floor as some damned band. Could get loud."

"It doesn't matter to me. I'll take whatever you have."

I watched as the man hunted and pecked on the dingy keyboard and then finally looked up at Edward again. He handed him a room key and gave him basic directions to the room that would be Edward's home for a while.

"At least he's out of the storm," I said to Jasper, although I didn't meet his eyes. I had a feeling that my vision wasn't over and it was pointless to try and draw myself from it.

"Where's he at?"

"Portland, I think. He's checking into a flea-bag hotel but its better than spending the night in the rain, like yesterday."

I watched as he walked slowly down the outside hallway toward the room. His head hung dejectedly as he shuffled his feet in the puddles. It was clearly night because the only illumination in the hallway was a few small wall lights. When he finally reached the room, he didn't even bother to look around but simply slid the key into the lock and walked in. The room was the barest I'd ever seen. A queen sized bed, a very small dresser with a television on one corner and a small chair in one corner were all the furniture I could see. There was a small door that I suspected was for a bathroom in one corner but the room was as bare as his mood was.

My brother dropped the backpack on the chair, where it promptly fell into the floor and then stripped the soaking jacket from his arms. He stared into nothingness as he mechanically performed each act. With slower than human speed, he walked forward to the bed and sat. As soon as he was settled, he leaned forward and covered his face with his hands.

I thought that maybe the vision was fading. I exhaled deeply, readying myself for the return to consciousness. But as I waited, something that rarely happened invaded my mind.

Dual visions.

With Edward still in my sight, another vision interrupted. It was very uncomfortable as my field of vision split and another scene wormed its way in.

A scene staring none other than Bella.

She was walking quickly down a hallway nearly identical to the one that Edward had just shuffled down. Doorway after doorway lined the left side of the wall and I could see raindrops pelting her from the opposite side. She was dressed all in black and had a stack of binders in her hand. She looked exhausted as she hurried down the wet walkway. I'd thought I was used to her appearance but I physically shivered as I looked at her. She was thinner than I could ever remember seeing her and her hair, although nearly to her waist, was stuck to her face and neck. She seemed to have on makeup but it was smeared and smudged in several places. She almost looked like she'd been working out with the sweat that coated her chest and neck but she didn't have on anything that could be considered gym clothes. In fact, it almost looked like she had on an outfit that would have been appropriate in a night club.

Just as she passed a large window directly beside yet another door, the stack of binders and papers flew out of her hand and scattered all over the wet hallway. I felt myself chuckle as I watched the binders and loose sheets of paper scatter. Some things never would change.

She knelt down quickly, much too quickly. I was sure that she would have bruises on both knees from her drop but she didn't even seem to notice the pain it must have caused. She started to gather the papers together, stacking them one on top of the other and she was muttering to herself. I was amazed to realize that I could **hear** the rustling of the papers as she tried to gather them.

And then she froze.

With only about three quarters of the items collected, she stiffened and stared straight ahead. She seemed to be breathing exceptionally hard, like she was inhaling a scent very quickly. I watched as her bottom lip began to tremble and her eyes filled with tears. She clutched the papers to her chest almost violently as she began to cry in earnest. The few tears that had slid down her cheek turned into a torrent of sobs that came down nearly as hard as the rain that was beating down on her. I had no idea what had triggered the tears, not that it mattered. What mattered was that she was falling to pieces before my eyes. With a violent jerk, she pulled herself up and literally ran down the hallway blindly.

Only seconds after she bolted, an extremely tall, extremely scary looking man walked into my line of sight. He was covered in tattoos and had a face full of metal. A wild mane of dreadlocks hung down his back and he was dressed from head to toe in leather. I was suddenly terrified as he stared in the direction she'd just run. But then he shook his head, in an almost resigned manner. The look on his face was…unexpected. He watched her retreating form with sympathy and helplessness. And not an unsubstantial amount of love. Whoever he was, he cared for her. His initial frightening appearance was diminished by the concern for her that was written across his face. He leaned over and gathered the remainder of the papers in his hands and then followed in the same direction she'd just fled.

"Ali? Baby, you okay?"

I nodded my head at Jasper's words but was too deeply involved in the visions to pull myself away.

Immediately, the vision of Edward pushed its way to the front of my attention. I cringed at the physical sensation of one vision overtaking another. It happened so infrequently that I was not prepared for the assault on my muscles.

Almost as if the vision of my brother was picking up where Bella's left off, I watched as he looked up from his hiding position in his hands and toward the window of the hotel. The look on his face was beyond hard to see as the unmasked Edward stared back at me. His eyes held pain that seemed bottomless. His jaw was locked into a hard line and his nostrils were flaring. He didn't look angry. That would have been easier to watch. Instead he looked…frightened.

He very slowly rose, water dripping with every step he took. He walked to the window and gripped the fabric hard enough to tear it but just stood there for a few seconds, breathing deeply. With vampire speed, he yanked the fabric apart, revealing the window that was now being assaulted with rain. The view I had of him switched. It was disconcerting how strangely my visions were acting. Instead of seeing the scene unfold as if I was standing beside him, as was usual for my Edward visions, the dynamic shifted and it was like looking into his hotel room from the outside. I watched, helplessly, as his eyes darted back and forth down the corridor outside his room. He was obviously searching for whatever it was that had caught his attention but was coming up empty.

He braced his hands against the glass and leaned his forehead forward until it touched the cool surface. From my vantage point, the rain streaking down the glass looked like the tears I wished so desperately he could shed. After a moment, he closed his eyes tightly. His chest began to heave and I could see his shoulders shaking.

My brother was sobbing.

"You're everywhere I go," he whispered into the night. My heart broke for his pain and his loneliness. There was nothing I could do to ease either, even if I'd been standing outside the window rather than several hundred miles away. But that didn't stop the desperate need I felt to try and do something for him.

"I can smell you. The rain…you always…you always smelled so fucking good in the rain."

It was with those words I understood what he was doing. He was talking to her. I'd thought that I'd heard him talking to himself on several different occasions. I'd even discussed it with Carlisle couple of times. I'd hear him whispering into the darkness of his closet when he thought we were all distracted or away. I hadn't known what he was doing. But I realized with a sharp stab that he'd been talking to her along.

Like someone would talk to a loved one that was dead.

"I can't breathe without you. I can't think. I miss you so fucking much…"

"Oh God, Jasper," I cried out, still lost in my vision. "He's hurting so much. We've got to do something."

"I know, baby," he said softly and I felt the warmth of his arms surround me. A small kiss to my temple eased the distress of what I was watching enough for me to return my focus back to the vision. "Is he hurting himself?"

"No. Not yet. But it can't be far away."

"If he's not in any actual danger, there's nothing we can do, Ali. He's got to find a way to handle this." He kissed me again and again; it was enough to soothe the tension that was racking my body.

I watched as he finally turned and leaned his back against the glass. He slowly slid down until just the top of his head was visible in the glass. It didn't take premonitions or visions to know that he was folded up against the wall, knees pulled up to his chest and his hands were most likely nearly ripping the hair from his head.

The odd feeling of the duality began to make itself present, alerting me that my Bella vision wasn't finished either. Just as the "view" began to split again, I noticed a single sheet of rain-soaked paper laying on the concrete walkway just outside of the window my brother was leaning against. The next millisecond, the vision switched, leaving me no time to ponder what might be important about seeing the trash in the hallway.

I reached for Jasper's hand and laced my fingers through his just as Bella came back into sight. She was standing in an extremely poorly lit bathroom washing her face. With a final splash of water, she reached for a small grayish towel that lay on the counter next to her. She looked up into the mirror above the sink as she began to pat the water off her skin. Whether it was the lighting or not, she was alarmingly pale. Her skin was nearly as gray as the towel in her hands, both of which had been a beautiful pale white at one point. The circles under her eyes were as deep as any hungry vampire. The sharp angles of her cheekbones and collarbones told the story of someone that had not eaten properly in a very long time.

With a painfully thin arm, she reached up to wipe the last of the moisture away from her neck. I caught sight of the same thing she did at nearly the same moment. The neon white line of a long scar down her right forearm and the circular pattern of teeth on her hand. She held perfectly still as her eyes traced the reminders of the life that she had once known and loved. The tears in her eyes betrayed the otherwise nonexistent reaction to the sight of the scars. With perfect calm, she set the towel down and reached for a glass on the counter and then filled it. She looked up into the mirror as she brought it to her lips. The dead eyes that had haunted my visions for so long stared at their reflection as she took a small sip.

And then, with a deafening shriek into the humid air of the bathroom, she threw the glass at her own reflection, sending shards flying in every direction. The scream was that of an animal in the throws of pain, not of the vibrant quirky girl that we'd all grown to love so dearly. It was nearly inhuman in its intensity and volume. And it was unbearable to listen to.

With the jagged glass scattered all around her, she sank to the floor. It was only the fact that she was wearing sweatpants that kept her from slicing her legs to pieces as she fell. The screams and sobs that she let loose were dangerously close to hyperventilation. I'd never seen a human cry harder or more primally than I watched my best friend in that moment. She clawed at her hair and the sides of her face until I was sure that she would make herself bleed. I wanted, with everything in me, to fly to her and wrap my arms around her until the screaming stopped.

"Bitch! We trashin' the place!" the long haired man from earlier said as the door to the bathroom flew open. Under any other circumstances, I would have been astounded to see that he was in the hotel room with her. But given what was happening, I was nothing short of eternally grateful that there was someone, **anyone**, there with her. It also didn't occur to me to be shocked that I could hear everything that was going on in that grimy bathroom, although for once, I almost wished that I couldn't hear her.

The ear to ear smile that he'd been wearing as he'd slung the door opened vanished at the sight of her shaking form on the floor. He cut his eyes to the remains of the broken mirror and the counter before he found her again. He sank down onto the floor; his long legs folded underneath him and his butt resting on his heels, and reached out gently for her.

"Aww, baby," he said extremely sweetly as he reached for her hands. She seemed lost in her grief and pain as he pulled her hands away from her face. Even without her looking up, I could see the angry red marks that stretched the length of her cheeks and neck.

"B, come on. Stop before you hurt yourself, please," he said a little more loudly. His huge hands now had her tiny wrists firmly in his grasp, although that did nothing to stop the howling that was still coming from her or the shaking that her body seemed incapable of controlling. "Come on, sweetheart. Here," he said soothingly as he placed her hands atop his long dreadlocks. "If you've got to hurt something, hurt me. Pull the dreads, not your hair."

She finally looked up and into his eyes. There was no hiding the concern he held for her. Her bottom lip quivered and her eyes shed more tears than I knew a human capable of producing. He nodded his head once and gave her a very sweet smile but she didn't move. Her hands were fisted around the long masses of hair but I didn't think she had enough energy to do any damage to him. All her energy was going toward just keeping conscious.

The same thought seemed to occur to the lanky man. He reached out and placed his hands under her arm and lifted her off the glass covered tile. She didn't fight the motion at all. In fact, she seemed to gratefully allow the contact. He pulled her into his lap so that she was straddling him but the gesture was anything but sexual in nature. The moment she made contact with him, she wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face in his chest. He hugged her back with equal force and with equal ferocity.

I had no idea how long he sat there, just rocking the two of them. His hand ran up and down her back, trying to console or calm her. She had him in a death grip but he never once said a word about being uncomfortable. Every couple of seconds, he would kiss her temple or the top of her head. And he never stopped whispering to her.

"I know, honey, I know. Tonight was a hard one. We won't do that again."

"Why," she sobbed into the cotton of the guy's tee shirt. "Why wasn't I…good…enough?"

"Aww, baby. Don't say that," he said with a tinge of anger in his voice as he gripped her tighter to his chest. "Come on, sweetheart…we'll get through it…I'm here and I'm not going anywhere. And don't you ever say that again."

"I love…him…so much. I can't make it stop. Make it stop!"

"I would if I could, darlin'. I would if I could."

"I…can't take…this. I can't live…"

As devastating as watching Edward was, this was worse.

With Edward, the pain was all consuming. But it was, at least in the large majority, of his own doing. I understood why he'd done what he did. I didn't agree with it and it had made me furious when he'd come home and told us of his plan. But I did understand where the concern came from. That was the only thing that made watching him over the last several years bearable.

But Bella had had no part in the agony that she was clearly in. She'd had neither any say nor input into the decision for him to leave. He'd blindsided her. And the aftermath was…I didn't even have a word for it. I'd thought that Edward was suicidal for a very long time. But with the family surrounding him, he'd never actually formed any real plan to do the deed. I wasn't so sure that Bella hadn't. How any mortal could live with the piercing pain she was clearly still in was beyond me. She was stronger than anyone I knew, human or otherwise. But everyone had their limits. And I was positive she was nearly to hers.

I could feel the venom in my eyes stinging as I watched the dreadlocked man try to console her. I didn't know who he was but I wanted to hug him for taking such care of her. He genuinely loved her and wasn't lying when he'd told her he would get her through the nightmare that she was currently locked in. A warm hand that could only belong to my husband, stroked the side of my face and neck as I fought to handle the onslaught of the terrible visions and emotions that were playing out in front of me. It was a comfort that neither my brother nor Bella would ever know until they found their way back to each other. And I was having serious doubts that either would survive long enough to do that.

With a jolt, Edward reappeared in my line of sight. He slammed his head backwards and into the wall underneath the picture window hard enough to send a sprinkling of plaster down over his shoulders. He did it a second time, bending the metal frame of the window above him.

"I can hear you," he cried as he folded his legs into an Indian position and wrapped his arms around his waist. He rocked himself violently, a direct contrast to the same motion that Bella's friend had just done for her. He seemed to be trying to punish himself rather than calm down. His eyes stared off into nothingness as he repeated the motion over and over.

"Every where I go, I can hear your voice. Bella, I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry. I can't…I don't want…I don't know how to live without you. I don't want to."

"Jasper, we have to go!" I said as I shot up from the bed. I still had a picture of Edward in my head but I couldn't stay in the house a moment longer while they both suffered so mercilessly. "To Portland, we have to help."

"Ali, just calm down. We don't even know where she is and we don't know if Edward will still be in the same place by the time we get there. What's happening?"

"They…they're both…Jasper, I don't think they are going to hold on much longer!" I shouted.

My husband's arms wrapped around me and lifted me from the floor. I could feel his breath wash over my neck as he spoke into the juncture at my collarbone. The act was so protective and so soothing; it made me want to weep.

"If you want to go, we'll go. But why don't you try to call him before we take off. If he'll answer for anyone, he'll answer for you."

"He won't. He's too lost," I said, sure that I was right about this. "And I don't think he's the one that is going to run out of endurance first."

"Is she…"

"No, not right now. She's got a friend with her that's trying to calm her down but Jaz, I don't know if he'll be able to do it. You should see her. She looks like she'd rather be dead than feel this any more."

"It's alright, Ali. Calm down. We can't help either of them if we're going to pieces too. Just try to call him. Please? If he won't answer, I'll drive you to Portland myself.

I nodded my head and walked the few steps until I reached the bed. My heart and my body both felt so ridiculously tired as I sank onto the mattress. I watched as Jasper crossed the room to the dresser that housed both of our cell phones. He checked his for any missed calls and then picked up the small pink one that was identical to his and brought it to me. It felt weightless in my hand even though it felt like the weight of the world was on the other end. I flipped it open but before I could even reach the speed dial number, the visions came back.

I was back in the bathroom with Bella and the nameless prince that I was sure was literally saving her life in that moment.

"Okay, darlin', wrap your arms tighter. We're gonna stand up."

She made no vocal acknowledgement of his words but I did see her arms shift slightly higher up his neck. He adjusted his left arm around her waist, wrapped her legs around his body and then reached for the door frame with his right hand. When he'd found his balance, he rose with seemingly no thought to the fact that he had a fully grown woman wrapped around him. As soon as he was upright, he placed his hand on the back of her head and tucked it into his neck, very much like Jasper had just done for me.

Bella was in his arms like a child that was completely out of energy. She held onto his neck but had it not been for his grip around her, she would have slid down his lanky body and puddled in the floor. I watched as he walked out of the lavatory and into the small hotel room beyond. The room was as barren as the one Edward was in at the moment, with only a bed, covered in the same obnoxious pattern, and a dresser visible.

"She okay?" another male voice asked quietly from somewhere inside the room but outside my line of vision. The scene was so heartbreaking, I didn't eve pause at the presence of another man in the room. I didn't care if there was a whole football team in there, as long as they were taking care of her. I could tell, just by the tone of voice of this unseen man that he also cared about her.

"Oh, she's anything **but** okay. But she will be."

"I meant did she hurt herself when whatever it was broke?"

"Nah, she just shattered the mirror. And a glass. Nothing none of us hasn't done before," he said as he reached the edge of the bed.

"Great time for Queenie to take off, huh?" a deep female voice asked.

The dreadlocked hero just snorted and then kissed the top of her head. I could still see her body jerking with the tears that were still pouring. As the man stood there with Bella wrapped around him, he restarted his rocking motion. He looked around for a second before he spied something that made his eyes light up just a bit.

"Ok, darlin'. Here's what we're gonna do. You just hold on to me, got it? I got an idea."

Her nod was so small it was almost imperceptible. But it was enough for him to feel. He turned toward the bed and put first one and then the other knee firmly on the mattress. In a clumsy cadence, he walked the two of them across the mattress toward the upper corner that was pushed against the wall. With some measure of concern, he pushed the stack of notebooks and papers that she'd been carrying over and onto one side of the bed. Very carefully, he turned around and faced the room once again.

"Gonna adjust ya a bit, sweetheart. Just relax, I gotcha."

In a clearly practiced move, he unclasped her legs and twisted her limp form until her back was against his chest. At the same time, he sank down onto the bed with his legs crossed. When it was all done, Bella was sitting in the hole between his legs with her body leaning fully against his chest. He once again tucked her head into the crook of his neck.

If I'd thought she was heartbreaking to look at earlier in the evening, then what I saw as he adjusted them again slightly was nothing short of devastating. Her eyes were simply dead. There was no light, no sparkle, not even a hint of recognition of her surroundings. The tears still streamed from her eyes but she made no move to wipe them away. Nor did she attempt to wipe her nose as it ran onto her upper lip. In fact, she made no move whatsoever. She was perfectly still. Nearly catatonic.

"Hold on, Ohob. We're gonna make it better, okay? We can always make it better but you gotta tell me when you're upset." He finished talking with a swipe of his arm across her nose with his sleeve. He didn't flinch at what would under normal circumstances be considered something gross to a human.

This man, this huge scary looking man was one of the kindest, most gentle people I'd ever seen. I felt guilty for my alarm earlier as I watched him so incredibly love with her. There wasn't anything romantic about any of his gestures and even if there had been, I wouldn't have cared. He had obviously seen this from her before, although I got the feeling this was one of the most severe attacks and he was determined to bring her out of it. I had no doubt that if it took twenty-four full hours for her to react to him, he would stay with her without hesitation. This was a good man and an even better friend.

This was the friend that I had not been to her.

It didn't matter my reasons, it didn't matter my loyalties. When my best friend had needed me the most, I'd left her. And I was watching the result. I thought, for the first time, that maybe Edward was right about us. Maybe we would be doomed to linger in purgatory forever. And my purgatory was the same as his. It always would be.

"Dee? Hand me the acoustic?" he said to the man I couldn't see. He then turned his face toward her and whispered "we're gonna bring you back, darling'. Promise."

A long tattooed arm held a faded acoustic guitar toward the man. I wished that someone would say his name. It felt wrong to refer to someone so amazing as "him". He took the guitar in his clearly practiced hand and situated it across both of their laps.

"Okay, babes. This is what we're gonna do. Just feel, okay?" he said as he placed her hands on the smooth wood of the instrument. He situated her hands on the bottom of the roundest part of the body. She didn't exactly help him but she did leave her hands on the guitar when he let go. "Just feel the vibrations. Feel the notes. Don't think, just feel the sounds, little bit. That's where it's calm. That's where everything is okay, remember?"

"Ali? Try to call him."

I blinked and made myself focus on the concerned face of Jasper, even as I watched the man begin to strum his fingers cross the stings of the guitar. With my focus on him, I could no longer hear Bella but for the moment, it was a welcome relief. I wasn't sure how much more I could take without blindly flying from the house to find her.

I looked down at the phone long enough to find the button that would connect to Edward's phone. I was still convinced that he would ignore the ringing but I couldn't not try. As the shrill sound reverberated in my ear, he reappeared in my mind also. He was still sitting in the floor under the window rocking himself. With no apparent cause, he looked up and stared at the wall directly behind the television. His eyes were once again wide but this was more out of amazement or shock than the fear that had clouded his features just a little while ago.

Whatever it was that had caught his attention worked in my benefit. Because after staring for a few seconds, he cut his eyes to the backpack on the floor that I knew housed the ringing phone. He seemed very reluctant to move but eventually, on the nineteenth ring, he did. He stretched until his hand made contact with the canvas material and then pulled it to him as he resumed his position against the wall. He didn't look at the phone but flipped it open and raised it to his ear. But his gaze was still firmly fixed on the wall.

"Alice," he said in a voice as dead as his eyes.

"I'm so glad you answered, Edward. I have been going crazy here."

"I'm know, I'm sorry. I just…" he trailed off as his eyes cut to the wall again.

"Edward? What's hap…"

"I can hear her everywhere I go, Alice. Everywhere."

At that moment, I heard what had his attention. There was music playing through the wall. It was somewhat muted but it was still distinct. It sounded like at a guitar. It was a beautiful, slow rhythm that echoed sadness and hurt. But it was gorgeous even with the tinge of pain that laced the notes. And very softly, a woman's voice sang in an extremely whispered voice.

**I can't run anymore**

**I fall before you**

**Here I am **

**I have nothing left**

We both sat in silence as we listened to the song. I recalled the clerk telling earlier about the band that would be down the hall and I guessed that they were the source of desolate beauty.

**Though I try to forget**

**You're all that I am**

**Take me home**

**I'm too far away **

At that point, a second guitar joined in, as did another female voice. The song was haunting. The words were the perfect accompaniment to the scenes that I'd watched all night.

"Can you hear that, Alice?"

"I do, Edward. Its gorgeous but I'm more worried about…"

"It sounds like her. Alice, I hear her voice. It's like she's haunting me. But I don't want her to stop."

"Oh, Edward. I know. I wish I could make it better for you," I said as soothingly as I knew how.

"How do I live without her, Alice? Tell me, please," he begged, his voice breaking on the last words.

"Honey, you just do. You keep breathing. You keep moving. There are still good things in the world…"

"Not without her there isn't." He wasn't petulant in his tone, just resigned. My brother had essentially given up on life.

"What would you say to her if you could talk to her one more time?"

"Alice? I don't know…"

"Listen to me for a second Edward. Take a page from the music you can hear. Write down what you would say to her if you had one chance. If there was one opportunity to tell her anything you could, what would it be?"

There was silence on the other end but I could see his eyes focusing on the long fingers of his right hand. Then, very tentatively, he reached for the backpack again. His hand disappeared into the top for just a second and reemerged with a leather bound journal.

Edward had written in journals off and on for decades. There were long stretches of blank pages from his life, mainly from his time away from the family. But I didn't think he'd written a word since that awful night.

"Tell me where you are, Edward. We'll come and get you."

"I…I don't know."

"Okay, I know you're in Portland. Look around the room and see if you see anything else?"

Gripping the journal tightly, he looked up and scanned the room quickly. The lone identifying marker was a small pad of paper near the phone on the dresser.

"The St. John Inn," he whispered.

"Alright, that's good. Thank you, Edward. Now, you write and we'll be there in just a little while."

"Alice, you don't have…"

"Yes, honey, we do. I don't want you to be by yourself."

"Alice?"

"Hmm?"

"I…I'm not sure…thank you."

"Anytime, Edward. Anytime."

He closed the phone and dropped it into the open mouth of the canvas bag at his feet. He stared at the book in his lap without moving as Jasper and I gathered our things to leave the house. Just as we slid into the car, my Bella vision returned.

She was still leaning up against the guy with the dreadlocks and he still held the guitar across their laps. He seemed to be nearly finished with the song he had played her. There were three other people sitting on the bed with them now, one of which also held a guitar in his hands. I watched as Bella's eyes closed very slowly and her head sagged further into her friend's chest. She was mercifully asleep. I didn't think it would be a very restful sleep for her but it was better than anything she'd experienced on this particular night.

"You want help movin' her?" one of the men with their backs to me asked.

"Nah, she doesn't need to wake up by herself tonight. Could you hand me a pillow and blanket?"

The people on the edge of the bed all kind of chuckled but immediately moved to gather the things he'd asked for. After less than a minute, the woman in the room had tucked a scrawny pillow behind his back and one of the men had unfolded a blanket over the two of them.

The man with the dreadlocks tucked the fabric around her tiny body like he was tucking in an infant. He still had her completely wrapped in his arms and obviously had no intention of moving either of them. With a soft kiss to her forehead, he leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes.

"Sleep well, angel."

I blinked and looked out into the quickly passing highway before us. I had no idea how long we'd been in the car but I didn't think it was long. I shifted in my seat to lean my head against the cool glass and watched as the deep green forest flew by us at an incredible speed.

"She's sleeping," I said quietly.

"Well, that's good. It sounds like she's had a horrible night. Rest is what she needs."

"What does Edward need? Sleep isn't an option for him. What is possibly going to ease this for him?"

He knew it was a rhetorical question. There was nothing that any of us could do for Edward. It was by his own doing that he felt the darkness every moment of his existence and only reuniting with Bella would ever let light break through for him.

As if on cue, my brother reappeared in my mind's eye. I couldn't actually see his face though. It was more like I was seeing the same thing that he was. His elegant fingers now held a pen above a blank page in the open journal. As I felt the car pulling us closer to him, I watched as his hand began to move. And I heard the soft whisper of his voice just as he began to write.

"My angel."

_Watching you sleep for so long_

_Knowing that I can't turn the rain to sun_

_Anymore_

_I've given you all that I have_

_Now I stand here too scared to hold your hand_

_Afraid you might wake to see_

_The monster that had to leave_

_But you see the shelter_

_I'm the storm_

_Holding wind to keep you warm_

_You were everything to me_

_This is why I have to leave_

_So sleep well, my angel_

_Under the ashes of lies_

_Something beautiful once_

_Is now dying_

_And the tears that spurn my eyes_

_As you sit there all alone_

_I just want to come home_

_But you see the shelter_

_I'm the storm_

_Holding wind to keep you warm_

_You were everything to me_

_This is why I had to leave_

_So sleep well, my angel_

_Sleep well, my angel_

_I'm sorry_

_I'm sorry_

_I'm sorry_

_I'm sorry_

_You see the shelter_

_I'm the storm_

_Holding wind to keep you warm_

_You were everything to me_

_This is why I hide_

_You see the shelter _

_I'm the storm_

_Holding wind to keep you warm_

_You were everything to me_

_This is why had to leave_

_So sleep well, my angel_

_Sleep well, my angel_

"Oh God, that's beautiful," I said to the still night air.

"What?" Jasper asked, obviously not expecting me to speak.

"What Edward is writing. It's beautiful and heartbreaking and just…perfect."

"It should be. You've been watching him for nearly an hour and a half."

"Really?" I said surprised at the amount of time that had passed.

"Yeah, we're nearly there. Maybe a half hour to go."

"Jasper, I'm sorry about this. I know we were supposed to have a night to ourselves."

"Alice, listen to me. I love you because of how incredibly big your heart is. I wouldn't expect anything less than for you to try and help him when he's in such bad shape. And he's my brother too."

I looked at the perfect silhouette of my husband. Truly, there was no one on this earth as perfect for me as him. The guarded rough exterior and the heart of…well, an angel. Just as Bella was Edward's saving grace, Jasper was mine.

"I love you," I said, wishing I had better words for him.

"I love you too," he replied as he cut his eyes to me and smiled.

With the rain still pouring, we pulled into the parking lot of the rancid little hotel that my brother was suffering in twenty minutes later. Hand in hand, we made our way to his room slowly, giving him time to compose himself before we knocked.

With ancient eyes, he opened the door. The mask of nothingness was gone. He wasn't even attempting to hide what he was feeling. Without a word, Jasper stepped forward and wrapped his arms around his neck and hugged him tightly to his chest. Edward hesitated for just a second before he gave in and allowed himself to be comforted.

"I wish I could cry," he said with a stutter. "I think I might feel better."

"You will feel better, Edward," my husband said with absolute certainty.

"Let's get you out of here," I whispered to them both.

Edward stepped away and shrugged his shoulders, shame and embarrassment written on his face. I looked down onto the concrete floor of the hallway to give him some measure of privacy with his emotions. Lying by the door was a now rain soaked piece of paper. The ink had all but disappeared but at the top of the page was a single word written in what looked like a familiar scrawl.

"October"

I looked at the piece of paper a little harder. No, it couldn't be. But it seemed so… I forced myself to dispel the thought before Edward could pick it out of my head.

He turned to the room very quickly and retrieved the backpack before pulling the door shut without a moment's pause. The three of us walked down the hallway without speaking. We each seemed lost in the hurricane of emotions that surrounded us. I knew that they, just as I was doing myself, were listening to the rhythmic breathing of the humans behind each of the doors as we passed them.

When we were all back in the dryness of the car, Edward in the backseat clutching his backpack to his chest and breathing very deeply, we made our way through the maze of the parking lot. At the very mouth of the asphalt, Jasper paused to check the oncoming traffic. As he did, I caught sight of a very large and well worn bus parked in the far corner of the lot. It was painted white with large black letters across it.

As we pulled back onto the main road that would lead us to the interstate, I looked one more time at the huge vehicle and the single word as it disappeared from my sight in the haze of the headlights.

**EverClear**


	4. Chapter 4

****Shoves the rock away and squints into the sun from the hole I've been hiding in****

**Hi there my darlings! Yes, it's really me and I am really giving you more from EverClear. I have been woefully off the radar for a while. But please know that everyone that has found EverClear in the last six months and reviewed it, I adore reading what you have to say and I am very sorry that I haven't had a chance to get back with you. Maybe I can redeem myself **winking conspiratorially****

**This is actually a one shot that was written specifically for my auction winner and she has graciously allowed me to share with you all. **

**So, the assignment she gave me was a one-shot that was EverClear consistent but involved a Jacob/Bella kiss that didn't end in a right hook. Now, most of you know, I am not a very big Jacob fan but I wanted to give her exactly what she asked for, so you guys let me know what you think. **

**Shannon, thank you for all your support and encouragement! Love ya Doll! Kitty nose snuggles to you!**

**Playlist:**

**Snuff by SlipKnot (I know, I know…it's not the band you expected but I think it works well and I love the song.**

**Oh! And I don't own any part of the Twilight universe. **

The Bachelor Party

JacobPOV

13 months before Atlanta

"There is no way they are going to let us all in here," I said with a snort.

"Of course they are bro. Just take a look around. Do any of us look younger than twenty-one? Even this one," Paul said as he grabbed Seth in a headlock and dragged him behind him as he continued to walk toward the door of the club.

"I guess," I said, still very skeptical that even given our physical appearances, we would be lucky enough for them to not ask for our IDs.

It was only under the relentless pressure from Paul and Quil that we were here at all. They had insisted that a bachelor party was in order. Sam, not only being our Alpha but the first one of us to get married, had good- naturedly gone along with the plans for a night out on the town. But at the suggestion of hitting a "gentleman's club", he'd stopped being quite so compliant. As he had very correctly pointed out, if we did indulged in that particular right of bachelorhood passage, the next time we phased, we would all catch hell from Leah. And then she would make a beeline for Emily. And, well…none of us wanted to see what happened after that.

That's how we ended up walking toward the door of a club that Quil had insisted we had to visit at nearly midnight. From what I could tell of the people milling around outside the door, this was most definitely not a club we could inconspicuously blend in to the crowd. Everywhere I looked, people were decked out in black and leather. Longer hair than any of us had sported on the reservation was present on both the men and the women and I was positive that I had never seen so many random body parts pierced.

"Quil? You sure about this? I mean, Seattle is full of clubs. Don't you think this one is a little…"

"A little what, Jake? You afraid of the big bad Goths?" he teased as we reached the line of people waiting to get in. At his words, the last of which was nearly yelled so as to be heard over the thundering music that was blasting from inside, several of the "Goths" turned around to give him the stink eye.

"Whatever, man. Just shut the hell up."

"That is some wicked fucking music," Embry said almost to himself as we slowly shuffled our way toward the door.

"That, bro, is why we're here. I read about this club in Rolling Stone. They are supposed to host the most epic bands. And they're all local acts, from Seattle or Portland."

Well, I didn't know about "epic" but they were sure as hell loud. Not really my kind of music but there was something about the sound as it reverberated through the brick wall that had my absolute attention. Just as we reached the door and the security guard that to anyone else would have been large, the instruments came to a screeching halt and the band's singer spoke to the crowd.

"Seattle!" she screamed and was met with a roar from the crowd inside. "You guys miss us?"

The crowd's answering roar was deafening. Obviously, the band was a favorite of the several hundred people here.

"Yeah, we missed you too," that voice called out over the continued shouts. "We're going to take a break but don't you guys go anywhere. We'll be back in half an hour."

"You guys pros or something," the burly man at the door asked in a deep voice. I was so preoccupied with the painfully familiar voice, that I didn't take any notice of who answered him or what the answer was. All I knew was that the rope was pulled back for us and another guy was leading us through the dark smoky club.

"Bro, this is too cool," Embry whispered in my ear as we wove our way through the crowd of long hair and leather. We passed the throngs of people that were crammed into middle of the club, all facing the stage at the far end of the room.

We were led to a table at the very back of the room that was situated behind a velvet rope and was corded off from the rest of the crowd with long black lines of fabric. The chairs in the area were much plusher than anything we'd passed and there were not nearly as many.

"Holy crap," Quil snickered. "They think we're football players or some shit," he crowed. "Dude's taking us to VIP seating!"

As we settled around the table, we all grinned like mad men. It really was an unbelievable thing that simply because of our size…and really, we stood feet above the crowd…we now had some of the best seats in the house. We were far enough away that the stench of the room, sweat and beer and cologne, didn't overpower us. But we were situated with a perfect view of both the band when they returned and the crowd below.

The band.

I had the sensation of being tasered as I thought about that voice. Impossible and ridiculous as it was…I knew that voice.

I still dreamt of that voice.

I'd spent years trying to forget that voice, to no avail.

I shook my head, trying to clear it, when the waitress brought six bottles of beer to us and set them down carefully. I noticed Embry smirking and knew, even without being linked, exactly what he was thinking. If he could have beaten his chest, he would have. Not only had we not been carded but we had been lead to the most exclusive area of the club free of charge. It was too good to be true.

"Guys," Paul said as he picked up the bottle that was so cold condensation was running down over his hand already. "I propose a toast."

We all copied his movements.

"Not only is he the best fucking Alpha in history,"

"Damn right," Jared interrupted a sincere look in his dark eyes.

"…but he's also the best friend, teacher and mentor we could have asked for."

I noticed that Sam's eyes were wide with emotion. It was clear that we were all in agreement with Paul and it was affecting him much more than I thought he had counted on.

"You and Emily are a perfect match, beyond soul mates. May the life you share be filled with happiness and love."

A chorus of "Here! Here!" rang around the table as we all clinked our glasses together. Rarely were we all in agreement. But on this point, we were totally in sync. Sam and Emily deserved to be happy after all they'd been through. And we all hoped that life from now on for them would be nothing but blissful.

"Guys…thank you. You all know how much Emily and I love you. But that means more to me than you'll ever know," Sam said quietly.

"Oh yes we will. Next time we phase," Embry said sarcastically.

And just like that, the serious emotional air lifted and we were just a group of idiots again. We talked and laughed, mainly at the bizarre collection of people in the club, and I was able to push that knotted feeling that settled into my stomach as we stood in line outside out of my mind. The energy in the room was amazing and the buzz was catching. The longer we were there, the more caught up we all became in the crowd.

"So who is this band anyway Quil?" Sam asked as he finished off his second beer.

"EverClear," he said and I was shocked to see his eyes literally light up. "Like I told you morons, I read about them in Rolling Stone and they are supposed to be the next big thing. You should've read this article. The guy went on and on about how amazing they are and how big they are going to be."

"Have you even heard any of their music? Or did you drag us all the way to Seattle for a band that may very well suck?" Jared teased as he elbowed Quil in the ribs hard enough to break one had he been, well, normal.

"Yes, I have dickwad. And so have you," he said smugly. We all looked at him expectantly but he just pursed his lips like a jackass.

"Well?" Sam said impatiently. "Tell us."

I noticed how the tone of his voice was like an extremely quiet command. He wasn't trying, I didn't think, but that strange double timbre was there none the less.

"You remember the other day in Jake's garage, that song 'Bring Me to Life'. You know the one with that kickin' duet?"

"Oh yeah!" Embry jumped in, clearly excited. "That's them?"

"Yeah, it is. When I heard they were going to be here the same weekend that we had this little outing planned, I **had** to come see them."

"Where was I when this was on?" I asked having no memory at all of the song he was talking about.

"Pushing Billy up the ramp," Quil added for clarification.

The conversation would probably have kept going but at that very moment, a ridiculously loud voice rang through the club.

"All right everybody! You ready for them?"

The screams grew exponentially louder and in the blink of an eye, the crowd seemed to triple in size. Fists pumped in the air and the rattle of metal echoed all around the room. The pitch black stage began to fill with black smoke that drifted menacingly over the edge and into the crowd below.

"Put your hands together! We've only got them for tonight, so let them hear it! They leave out in two days to join Metallica for six weeks on the West coast leg of their tour… Ladies and gentleman…EverClear!" The voice screamed the last word so loudly; it seemed as if his voice would shatter the glasses around the room. As the noise reverberated through the room, four figures became shadowed by the lights behind them.

An eerie as hell keyboard began playing and the crowd went ballistic. After just a few seconds, the rest of the band joined in and the wall of sound they produced was startling. The crowd instantly began thrashing their heads in perfect time with the wailing guitars. Sam and I both laughed at the scene below us, acting very much like the pompous pro athletes that we were mistaken for. The crowd below was nearly rabid in its enthusiasm after just a couple of bars of music. There was a sea of flying hair below us and as if on some unseen cue, everyone in the room began to clap their hands above their head.

The musicians themselves looked like the steroid version of a typical rock star. All four of them, including the chick playing the keyboards, were dressed in black and denim and leather. All of them had tattoos covering their arms. And all of them sported hair that made even the long hair so typically seen around the reservation seem short. One of them, a tall lanky dude on the right side of the stage wore dread-locks and had more facial metal than I'd ever seen on any one person. And if the audience was thrashing harshly then, they were damn near breaking their necks with the force they threw their heads around with when a haunting, and familiar, voice began to sing from offstage.

**Perfect by nature**

**I fall in self-indulgence**

**Just what we all need**

**More lies…**

My head whipped around desperately seeking the source of the voice that wailed out above the din of the music and audience alike. It was **the** voice. It was…**her **voice.

"Jake? Man, what the hell?" someone said behind me as I stared, dumbfounded, at the figure standing in shadows high atop one of the dozen or so amplifiers. As the lights began to slowly rise to their peak illumination, I knew without a single doubt, exactly who I would see.

And I was right.

When the lights came all the way up and flooded the stage, perched above the speaker and looking very much at home was the person I knew I'd find as soon as that voice had called out to the room.

Bella.

Only this looked nothing like the Bella I knew. She was dressed in head to toe tight black leather and stood in very high heels. The teenager's body from so many years ago, the one I'd spent more time imagining than I would ever admit out loud, was gone, replaced by a much too thin but oh so sexy woman's figure. Her hair was nearly to her butt and she was wearing heavy make-up for her. But the dark brown eyes that shone at the audience at her feet and the quirky smile on her face made her impossible to mistake.

**Never was**

**And never will be**

**Have you no shame**

**Don't you see me**

**Cause you know**

**You have everybody fooled**

"Holy."

"Shit," Embry finished for Quil.

"Um, bro?" Paul said with amusement in his voice.

"Jake, you okay?" Sam asked as I felt his hand settle on my shoulder.

"I…I don't know," I whispered honestly.

I couldn't think as I watched her scream the lyrics into the air with a power I would never have guessed her tiny body to be capable of. As gracefully as a cat, she slinked her way down the stacked amps until she stood directly between the two guitar players. Her voice resonated off every corner of the room so loudly that to my sensitive ears, it was almost painful. She sang the next verse of the song with absolute recklessness. There was nothing left of the shy girl I'd spent years thinking of. Worrying about. Dreaming of. And loving.

This was someone I didn't know.

There wasn't an ounce of awkwardness or shyness in the person I was transfixed by on stage. The girl that had wrapped herself away from the world in bulky sweaters and flannel was replaced by the bombshell in the leather half shirt and extremely low cut leather pants. The voice that at times I'd had to strain to hear in its timid volume as we worked together in my dad's garage had given way to a raw power that really didn't need the microphone clutched tightly in her hand to be heard above the thundering music.

And then I caught sight of the audience at her feet. They adored her. Nearly worshiped her. Men and women alike followed her every move as she pranced back and forth on the stage. They sang every word along with her and when she pushed her voice into a range they couldn't match, they screamed in adulation.

"Jacob!" Sam said sharply, pulling my eyes to his worried ones. "Are you okay? Would you like to leave?"

I didn't need to be in my wolf form to know that the thoughts of my brothers would be scrambling between amused amazement and worry for me and my reaction to her reappearance. When she'd disappeared the day after we'd buried Charlie, it had destroyed me. I had known Bella well enough to know that she simply couldn't handle being in Forks after her father was murdered. I'd never blamed her or even been angry with her after she literally disappeared into the night. I couldn't be. And I had tried very hard to turn the monumental pain that I lived with for nearly a year after she'd gone into anger. But in the end, I simply couldn't. She'd had so much to deal with. Especially after….

"Come on guys," Sam began as he rose from his chair.

"No, wait," I nearly screamed as I reached for his massive forearm. As confused and obliterated as I felt, leaving wasn't an option I could entertain. But before I could say anything more, she spoke again and it didn't matter if I was okay or not. What mattered was that she was here and the thought of leaving without at least trying to speak to her was painful beyond anything I'd experienced since she'd left the first time.

"Alright, we're gonna do one for you guys that some of you will know. Sing it with us if you know it," she said as she smiled sweetly at the crowd of mutants below her. I felt the muscles in my back relax as her speaking voice registered. **That **was my Bella. That was the voice of the person I knew and I realized, at that exact second, still loved. In the next second, the band kicked in and I watched, dumbstruck, as she began to thrash her head around in perfect time with the music.

For the next forty-five minutes, I was transfixed with watching every single movement she made. From the wild thrashing of her hair to the rise and fall of her chest as she heaved after each new song was finished. Hell, I'd even tried to count the number of drops of sweat that raced down her forehead and neck. But I was desperate to memorize each and every part of the time she was on the stage. The pack was strangely quiet as we watched the spectacle in front of us. I was distantly aware of the low murmur of conversations that my boys held but paid no attention whatsoever to what they were actually saying. My beer seemed to stay cold and to replace itself within the bottle but I had no recollection of a waitress ever reappearing or asking for my order.

I was simply too stunned at what I was watching to take in anything but what was happening on the stage. It wasn't just the power of her voice or her appearance. It was the transformation into someone nearly unrecognizable that startled me the most. When she spoke to the crowd, glimpses of the girl I'd known were there. But when the music picked back up, that girl was gone. She had buried herself deep within the notes and chords and lyrics. She was completely hidden from the world as Bella Swan of Forks, Washington. And it was no wonder. The lyrics to her songs seemed to be about **nothing** except pain. Each song sounded very different from the previous one. But the common thread through them all was an unquestionable, deep-rooted life of pain.

"Alright fuckers, that about does it for us tonight," she said with a wicked smile that I'd never once seen. At one point, I'd known every single one of Bella's smiles. The shy one I'd get when I tried to compliment her, the sarcastic one that always followed one of her snarky comments, and the truly happy one I'd seen on rare occasions and usually only on the bikes. And the tight fake smile that I saw much too often that was her rotten attempt at hiding what she was really thinking or feeling. I'd known them all at one time. But the smile tonight as she cursed at the audience was, much like she was on the stage, a stranger.

"I think you might know the next couple of songs," she said as she looked down into the audience. "Sing them with us and we'll play harder for you!"

**How can you see into my eyes**

**Like open doors**

"That's it! That's the song," Quil yelled out across the table. It was the first thing I was conscious of him saying since the band had come onstage, even thought I knew he'd been talking all along.

I had a small hint of recognition as the song's pace and volume picked up of hearing it on the radio a couple of times. But I simply couldn't reconcile what was in front of me. She got louder and more powerful with each passing line and her face betrayed the emotions of what she felt as she sang. The look on her face suggested that she was being stabbed as she yelled back and forth with the dread-locked musician.

**Frozen inside **

**Without your touch**

**Without your love, darling**

**Only you**

**Are the light among the dark**

The thought in my head as it took shape was the first flash of anger I'd felt toward Bella in nearly four years. And it actually wasn't directed at her. But the words as she called out so desperately brought with them the picture of a…thing…I'd tried my damnedest not to think about. Ever.

I shook my head, once again, to try and clear that image before it could even really take shape.

"I need a minute. Maybe some fresh air," I said to the table. Six sets of equally dark and equally concerned eyes looked back at me. I rose without waiting for a response and quickly made my way back out toward the parking lot. As soon as the door opened, the welcomed cool night air slapped me from my stupor.

I leaned my head back against the brick wall and closed my eyes, willing the night to block the sounds from inside the club. It was one of the few times I wished I could phase to escape the circumstance.

Yes, I was beyond thrilled to see Bella. But I was also completely and utterly confused by this "new" Bella. And I was still struggling to shake the anger that flashed through me when I'd thought of…him.

"Jacob, you okay?" Sam's deep voice asked from very close beside me.

"Yes. No. Fuck, I don't have a clue, Sam," I answered honestly.

"That's about what I expected," he said with a low laugh. "I can only imagine what you must be feeling right now."

The entire pack had known how much I missed Bella after she'd left. But they had all eventually gotten tired of my "brooding" as Leah called it. After the first couple of months, they had teased me mercilessly. All of them except Sam. He knew just how hard it was to love someone that you couldn't be with. And how awful it was to carry that love with them on a daily basis.

Sam loved Emily like nothing on the planet. She was his imprint and they were as perfect as any two people could be. But he had loved Leah and still carried a lot of guilt over hurting her. But he also carried a love for her that could never be enough. Never be what either of them needed. It was that part of Sam that understood why I was out in the cold trying to gather my thoughts rather than simply leaving the club.

"You going to speak to her?"

"I'm not sure. I'm not sure I _can_ speak to her. This band seems to be a pretty big deal."

"True," he said nodding his head as he toed the gravel at our feet. "Want my advice?"

I just looked at him rather than speak.

"If it was me, I think I'd need to speak to her. I'm not sure you will ever be able to live with the 'what ifs" if you don't."

I laughed in spite of myself. Sam knew me well. And he was right. If I left tonight without so much as speaking to her, I'd always regret it.

"Sure, sure," I said with as much of a smile as I could. "That's probably true."

"You ready to go back inside?

"Yeah, why not," I mumbled as I reached for the handle to the door. The bouncer at the front door barely even looked up as we passed him. Just before we reached the open area in front of the bar, I touched Sam's elbow. He turned and looked at me, a somewhat confused expression on his face.

"Sam, thank you. I'm sorry about messing up your bachelor party."

"Anytime, my brother, anytime. And you didn't mess up anything."

We walked together back through the club, which was much less crowded in the lobby and bar now that the band was on stage, and made our way back to the guys. Before we reached the table though, the dark haired beauty on stage caught my attention again.

"We love you Seattle and we'll see you soon!"

The cheering and shouts were louder than at any other point during the night and the people were pushing each other towards the front of the stage with concerning intensity. I watched, stone still, as the lights went out on the stage and the five people walked quickly towards an open door to the left of the stage. The light inside what must have been a dressing room was just bright enough to for me to see Bella nearly run through the door, the guy with dreadlocks beside her and his arm around her hunched shoulders. She looked like she was just before bursting into tears as she disappeared into the small room.

"So what's the plan now?" Paul asked loudly from his seat at the table. "We staying a while or splitting?"

"We're gonna stay and let Jake try to see her," Sam answered for me.

Even without the pack mind connection, I knew what each one of my brothers was thinking simply by the looks on their faces. Paul and Jared were almost disgusted with my once again obvious infatuation with Bella, Quil and Embry wore identical looks of pity as they stared back at me. And Seth looked simply crushed, whether because we were staying or because of my situation, I didn't know.

I watched as the lights above the club came up and the crowd began to disperse. I realized that the dressing room was also raised up, on the same level as the stage, and separated from the main floor of the club by a black metal railing. For five minutes, I stared at the plain black door, my leg bouncing up and down and absent mindedly chewing on the cuticle of my thumb.

"Just go over there already," Quil said with a laugh. "You may have a higher than average body temperature but that doesn't mean you can melt the door away with your x-ray vision."

"Isn't stopping him from trying though," Embry added with the same laugh.

I took a deep breath and stood from my chair. I'd only taken a few steps away from our table and was just about to leave the V.I.P. area when Sam spoke.

"Jacob? It will be fine and we are all here for you."

I nodded my appreciation and realized that despite the teasing and the ribbing, all of them were concerned for me. A rush of gratitude and love ran down my back and gave me the strength to steel myself for what I was about to do.

I crossed the floor and was around to the side of the railing in four long strides. I'd climbed the first two of the eight steps when a body appeared in front of me.

"Can I help you with something?" a tall round man with thick black framed glasses and long hair said from the top step as he crossed his arms over his chest.

"Yeah, I'm going to see Bella."

"I don't think so buddy."

I realized what it must have sounded like to him. Chances were that the people in Bella's life hadn't even heard my name before, much less understood that, at least at one time, we were friends. I was quite sure in that second, I seemed like some horny fan just trying to hook up with her.

"It's not like that, man," I said with what I hoped was an easy going smile. "Bella and I knew each other in high school. I just want to say hello."

"Me too dude," an unfamiliar voice said from behind me and to my right. I looked over my shoulder to see a handful of guys milling around at the foot of the stairs also. They all sported long hair and black leather and were the exact thing I had been thinking of just moments ago. "I sat beside her in Chemistry," the guy said with a cheesy smile.

The band's security guard placed a hand on my chest, probably to shove me backwards a bit. I stood still against the pressure but tried my best not to look threatening.

"Really, man. I've known Bella a long time. Our dad's were buddies. I just want to say 'hi'. I'm not looking to hook up."

"Sorry but no one in the dressing room. Old family friend or not."

I could push my way past the guy easily and the thought crossed my mind. But then I decided that would just start trouble. For her and for myself. And that wouldn't do anything to help me see her.

"Look, can you maybe just tell her that Jacob is here."

"Jacob? As in Jacob Black," an older man with glasses and gray hair cut into a military style buzz said from behind the security guard. He was holding a garment bag in one hand and a small duffel bag in the other. His appearance was as opposite from the other people in the room as one could possibly get. Had the circumstances not been so surreal, it would have been funny to see this obviously gay man standing in the middle of a Goth club.

I looked at the man through the haze of the smoke in the club, ready to smile and thank him for his recognition but stopped when I realized he looked slightly familiar. I'd never met him, I was sure of it, but I remembered him.

Charlie's funeral.

This man was with Bells at Charlie's funeral. He had sat beside her at the graveside service and held her hand through the entire thing. When she'd quietly cried, he'd put his arm around her and handed her a tissue. Afterwards, he'd left with her.

"Yes, that's right. I'm Jacob Black."

"Jacob, I'm Chip," the little man said as he stood beside the security guard. "I've heard a lot about you, it's nice to finally have a face to put with the stories."

A loud thump against the dressing room door pulled everyone's attention away from the awkward conversation for a second. Another thump, this one even louder sounded and then the unmistakable sound of a scream rang out. Maybe it was the noise of the crowd or the music playing over the loud speaker that had resumed once the band left the stage but the scream did not sound like a group of musicians partying after a show. It was unmistakably female and sounded painful.

"Listen, I don't know what's going on in there but let me go inside and see. I'll tell her you're out here. I don't know when she'll be out but hang out here for a couple of minutes," he said to me with obviously worried eyes. Then he turned to the guard and spoke quietly. "Boz, let him stay here for a sec but get rid of the other assholes. I'll be back in a few minutes.

Without a word, Boz, whoever that was, pushed passed me and started herding the other men away from the staircase. I looked back toward the dressing room door just as Chip pushed it shut behind him as he entered. But he didn't close the door fast enough to keep me from seeing inside the room for a split second. Sitting in a ratty armchair just inside the tiny room was Bella. She was leaned forward, her hands in her hair on top of her head, her shoulders shaking and her elbows leaning against her knees.

She was crying.

As the door closed once again, I looked back toward the tables at the rear of the club. All six of my brothers wore serious expressions as they watched the scene from across the room. I held up my finger to signal for them to give me some time. Sam nodded once and then turned towards the guys and started a conversation, a distraction technique obviously but still very much appreciated.

I leaned with my back against the railing and looked out into the mass of people that still swarmed around the club for what seemed like a long while. As the night wore on, they were getting more and more intoxicated and were becoming much more entertaining to watch. Even among Goths, apparently the top of the priority list included hooking up and picking fights. It was mildly entertaining to watch all the men dressed in their leather and chains hit on the women that wore more piercings in their faces than in their ears. I looked down at my feet to hide a sarcastic smile that would have surely started a fight if it had been notice.

"Jacob?"

I spun around as fast as I could at the nearly whispered word. Because it didn't come from the security guard or from Chip.

Standing at the top of the staircase, dressed in baggy blue jeans and a tee shirt that swam on her, was Bella. The tight leather from stage wasn't the only thing missing as I stared at her. So was the stranger. Her face was free of the make up that I'd noticed even from so far away and her long hair was pulled away from her face in a pony tail at the base of her neck. Neither change did anything to hide the circles under her eyes or the red puffiness around her cheeks and nose but nor did either distract from her incredible beauty. But what had me staring was the smile she wore.

It was the genuine, real smile I remembered from our time so long ago.

"Bells," I said with a huge grin of my own.

"Jacob!" she squealed as she literally jumped from the top step down and into my arms. Had I not had the reflexes I did, I most likely wouldn't have caught her.

The second her body made contact with mine, several things invaded my mind at the same time. One, she was absolutely tiny. She had never been big but my god, she seemed to be thin as a reed and more breakable than glass. Two, she still smelled exactly as I remembered. Strawberries and sunshine and fresh cut grass. And third, her arms around my neck still felt like the most perfect thing in the world.

I tightened my arms around her waist, her feet swinging in the air more than a foot off the ground, as I felt the hot tears on my neck. When I'd caught her, she had buried her head against my neck at just the right angle for me to lean my cheek against the top of her head.

"Why you crying Bells?" I asked her quietly as I ran the hand not holding onto her waist down the back of her head softly.

"I don't know," she half laughed, half cried as she looked up at me. Those damn huge beautiful eyes sparkling with her tears. But the smile was still there.

"What are you doing here?" she asked.

"What the hell are you doing here?" I asked her at the exact same moment.

We both chuckled as I sat her on her feet. But neither of us let the other out of the embrace.

"Jesus, when did you turn into Goliath?" she asked as she stepped back just a little and looked me up and down. It wasn't an uncomfortable or odd experience to have her look at my body. It was anything but actually.

"Probably about the same time you turned into a rock star," I retorted with a smirk. Then I returned the favor of the ogling. And ah, yes, there it was. The infamous Bella Swan blush. It rose up her neck and over her cheeks so fast, it was almost comical.

"Stop it, Jake. I'm not a rock star," she said bashfully.

"Like hell," I shot back. "I was here for the show."

"Oh my god," she said, embarrassed, as the blush intensified. "I can't believe you saw that. But you didn't answer my question, Jake. What are you doing here?"

"In the club? Or in Seattle?" I tentatively threaded my fingers through hers as they hung at our sides.

"Either. Both. Whichever," she said as she grinned. And tightened the grip around my hand.

"Well, the club was Quil's idea. He heard this kick-ass band on the radio and then found out that they were playing in a club in Seattle."

She groaned like I'd just kicked her and hid her face in my chest.

"As for Seattle, we're here for Sam's bachelor party."

"Sam's getting married? Oh, that's great. Tell him I said congratulations."

"Wicked fucking show," a rough voice interrupted us from very close beside us. It was the jerk that had tried to talk his way into seeing her with his "chemistry" lie. And right behind him were at least half a dozen others just like him.

My grip on her hand tightened and I pulled her closer to me and away from the group of men that were blatantly eye-fucking her.

"Thanks," she said quietly with a touch of something in her voice that was either fear or disappointment, I couldn't decide which. But both made me want to punch them.

She spent a few minutes speaking with her "fans". And while they obviously appreciated her for more than her performance, there was no denying that they were impressed by the music in general and her abilities on stage in particular. But with each passing minute of her conversation, she moved slightly closer to me until she was tucked right up under my shoulder. It was clear that as comfortable as she was on the stage, she was equally as uncomfortable around the people in the club. She seemed extremely relived when they finally backed off and began to walk away.

"Sorry about that," she said quietly, without looking up at me.

"Bells, it's no problem, really."

She still didn't look at me.

"Hey," I said as I tilted her chin up towards me. "Quil and Embry, along with the rest of the guys are here. Why don't you come over and say 'hello'"?

Her smile was tight again. The fake smile was back. She was hiding herself from me and everyone else in the club. And her eyes looked…strange. Almost unfocused. But the thing that told me what was going through that head of hers was the way her arm wrapped around her chest. That I had seen before.

"Come on," I encouraged her as I wrapped my hand around her waist and pulled her fully against my side. "They will be thrilled to see you. And you can tell Sam congrats yourself."

"Okay," she breathed out and I noticed her body relaxed just a little as I lead her toward the guys.

As expected, they were all excited to see her. Quil and Embry were especially wired to see her again. She was obviously still tense but she seemed to continue to relax as she spoke to them, accepted their praise graciously and told Sam how happy she was for him. After fifteen minutes or so, the conversation lulled a bit and she shifted on her feet nervously.

"Let's go find a table and talk," I suggested to her. She smiled gratefully and said goodbye to the pack, giving them each shy hugs.

"Yo! Bitch!" someone yelled across the room.

She whipped her head around, slapping Quil with her hair in the process and looked back toward the stage. The guy with the dread locks stood in front of the drum kit wearing nothing but a pair of long shorts covered in bright yellow monkeys of all things and blue fuzzy bedroom slippers. He had a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other and was grinning like he'd just won the lottery.

"Well, well. Look what we have here," he said delightedly. "Should I call you Pocahontas?" The guy looked over her shoulder to us, raised one hand, palm out and said "How" in an overly exaggerated voice. Then he turned back to her as started singing "can you paint with all the colors of the wind" in a high pitched imitation of a woman's voice.

"JP! Shut the fuck up," she yelled across the room, her eyes blazing. Then she turned to me. "Sorry. He's an utter moron most of the time. Excuse me just a second." The anger I felt at his making fun of our heritage evaporated when I saw the out-of-place sweet smile that he gave her as he looked over at her. However much of an idiot this guy was, and really, he had to be a class a moron to say such a thing to seven guys that all stood well above six foot three, he very obviously cared about her.

She said goodbye to the guys once more and then stomped across the room muttering something about the fucking idiot as she made a bee line toward him. The lanky man didn't flinch away from her anger at all but simply grinned an evil smile at her.

"Have you lost your ever loving mind, JP?" she spat as she neared the stage. But I noticed that she grinned at him as he hopped down off the rise and stood before her. Clearly, he knew her well enough to know her anger wasn't genuine. And he clearly more than just cared about her. He loved her.

Not wanting to watch the obvious affection between them, I turned my back and faced the pack again. It was the first time I'd considered that there may be more between them than band mates. I thought about the way he'd had his arm around her as they exited the stage. A small cough brought me, thankfully, away from the path my mind was wondering. The expressions they wore ranged from deep concern on Sam's part, to awed appreciation on Quil's face and finally to annoyance from Paul and Jared.

"Guys," I started, "why don't you guys take off and I'll meet up with you back at the hotel."

"Jake, you sure about that?" Sam asked with deep lines around his mouth and eyes.

"Not really but I need some more time to talk to her and I don't want you guys to loose the rest of your night."

"What the fuck, man? Bros before hos," Paul barked out.

The anger that flashed down to my toes stunned even me. My hands were shaking wildly as I stared at him and I was forever grateful that I had regained enough control to keep myself from phasing right there in the club. The Goths probably wouldn't react well to a six foot tall wolf standing in their midst.

"Back off Paul," Sam snapped before my anger could grow any more. "Don't bait him; this is hard enough for him as it is."

My hands were still clenched but I pulled my gaze away from Paul, who looked a little shocked that he'd angered me, and back to Sam. It was his night after all. And it was his call.

"Yeah, I'm sure. You guys go ahead and take off without me. I'll meet you back at the hotel later on tonight."

"If you're sure, Jake," my Alpha said sincerely as he patted me on the back a couple of times. "And you know, if you need us, we'll be here for you. **All** of us," he said with a sharp glare toward Paul.

"Sure, sure. Stay out of trouble, will ya?"

"You too," Embry said with a pointed look across the room at Bella.

As they slowly walked away, I turned to watch the tiny figure talking to the lanky musician. I watched them, trying to find any sign them being a couple in the way the interacted with each other. There were no touches between the two, no physical contact at all. But the more I watched, the closer I realized they were. There wasn't an ounce of tension between them. They were very very comfortable with each other, both on the stage and away from it. Finally, I watched as he leaned over and pecked her on the check before he headed into the main bar area, still wearing the ridiculous outfit.

Surely if they were together her would have "kissed her" kissed her rather than just the peck on the cheek. Right? I was still thinking hard about it when I realized she was walking straight toward me. I sighed as I looked at her again, the blush still on her skin from her earlier embarrassment.

"Everything alright?"

"Oh yeah, everything's fine," she said very naturally. "JP is a pain in the ass but he's harmless. He was just telling me what the plan for tomorrow. He wants us all here to pack up the equipment before we leave on Monday. Why we can't let the crew do it as usual is beyond me, but that's JP."

"You wanna grab something to drink and sit down for a while? You've got to be tired after all that," I asked as I waived toward the now dark stage and instruments.

"That actually sounds really great, Jake," she whispered with a small smile. The bashful smile. God, it had been a long time since I'd seen it. And it made me feel…warm.

For the next two hours we sat in the rear most corner of the club and talked. I was somewhat amazed at how accommodating the club was to her. They made sure that the other patrons stayed away by placing security guards all around us, the constantly supplied us with fresh drinks…beer for me, water for her. Even once the house lights came up and all the people that were not employees were ushered out, they left us alone to catch up.

My body knew that it was Bella sitting across from me, just as easily as my eyes did. I felt a sense of calm and peace that was solely due to her. The unique smell that was her, the warmth of her skin as she sat less than a foot away from me, the gentle smoothness of her skin when I touched her hand; they were all familiar and comforting. But the conversation wasn't easy. There was almost no subject about her current life that Bella would actually talk about. She was very interested in hearing all the details of life on the reservation, wanting to know about my dad, my sisters. Even people that she only knew in passing, like the Clearwaters, were of great interest to her. She wanted to know all about me and how my life had progressed over the last four years. In short, she wanted to talk endlessly about anything but herself.

No matter what I asked her, with only two exceptions, if it pertained to her current life and occupation, she steered the answer away or just plain old refused to answer. I didn't get any information at all about her music, her performances, her songs, Renee…anything. The only two questions she answered with straightforwardness were whether or not she and the guy with the dread locks were together and how she knew Chip. I was relieved, much more so than I should have been, when she snorted loudly and rolled her eyes when she told me that she was not involved with the bass player of her band and I was thrilled to find out that Chip was a "mother" of sorts to her. It was the one piece of information she gave me that put my mind at ease about her current life. But the further into the night, or very early morning, we got, the more often I watched her wrap her arms around her body. At some points she seemed to stop breathing all together, at others, she seemed to shake slightly in her seat. She never shrank away from my touching her but she also never initiated any of the touches.

I realized as we sat there into the early morning hours that the girl I'd known and the stranger on stage were only very small pieces of Bella now. The largest part of the quirky, sarcastic girl that had moved to Forks with Charlie was completely buried deep inside her, behind an armor she had built. And there was no penetrating the walls she had put around herself. I tried, all night, to find a way to get her to open up. But she stone-walled me at every single attempt I made. Whatever was inside her head, she wasn't sharing. And I got the feeling it wasn't just with me that she wasn't letting her thoughts and feelings out. I had the distinct impression that she allowed no one in anymore.

"Bella, I hate to do this but it's a little past four and we're getting ready to lock up," a man with a bald head I recognized as the bartender said from about ten feet away from us.

She turned in her seat and nodded her understanding and then apologized for keeping them there so late. After assuring her that we had not delayed them locking up and telling her that he would call a cab to pick her up, the man turned to leave. She looked back at me, somewhat awkwardly, as she stood from her chair.

"Where are you staying tonight? I'm assuming you aren't going back to the reservation this late," she asked as I followed her toward the front of club.

"Nah, we have a couple of hotel rooms here for the night," I replied as I reached for the door. As soon as I opened it, the cold air washed over us. It didn't bother me at all but I did notice that she shivered violently as the wind hit her. It didn't seem to even register with her that she was wearing a short sleeved tee shirt and no jacket, so I put my arm around her and pulled her into my side, meaning only to warm her up. But she wrapped her arm around my waist and snuggled into my body very much like she was searching for something other than warmth.

"Well, I'm guessing you don't have a car here since the guys left earlier. You want to share a cab? I don't live far from the club, we can get them to drop me off and then take you to the hotel."

"Thanks Sweetheart, that sounds good." I didn't know what else to say but I knew I wasn't quite ready to let her go.

Only a couple of minutes later, the taxi pulled up to the curb and we climbed in. She gave the driver her address and then I told him which hotel we were staying at. And that was the end of the conversation in the cab. She closed her eyes and leaned against my shoulder as we wound our way through the city. I wanted to ask her a thousand more questions but was sure she would continue to deflect them all. So I just enjoyed having her near me, even as I knew my time with her was quickly coming to an end. She had made it clear, while not being rude about it, that she would not be asking me up to her apartment.

All too quickly, we arrived at what I presumed was her building. It was an odd, massive building that didn't seem to belong among the modern high rise buildings that surrounded it. I was staring at the building when she told the cabbie to give us just a second and then opened the door and started sliding out into the night.

"Well, this is me," she said as she gestured to the building behind her.

"I sort of figured that Bells," I said with a smirk.

She stood facing me, her back to the glass door on the sidewalk. I reached out and took both of her hands in mine. The wind whipped her hair around her face and the glow of the lobby behind her lit her from behind in the most beautiful way. She looked so tired, so breakable but breathtakingly beautiful as she craned her neck up to look at me.

"Jake," she started but I cut her off before she could give me an excuse as to why she wasn't asking me up.

"Bella, don't worry," I said, hoping to make this as easy as possible. I let go of her hand and brought it to her cup her face. She closed her eyes and leaned into my touch. I slowly stroked my thumb against her cheek, much like I'd done a hundred times years ago.

"I'm so sorry I left without saying 'goodbye'. I never meant to hurt you Jake," she whispered without opening her eyes. "You were so good to me and I was such a horrible friend to you."

"That's not true, Bella. You did what you felt you had to do after Charlie. I could never be upset with you for that."

"But I," she squeaked as she opened her eyes, her eyelashes wet with the tears she was trying to keep from falling. The stab of pain that the look in her eyes sent through me was nearly enough to bring me to my knees. It was the first glimpse of what was really truly inside her that I'd gotten all night.

I placed my finger over her lips and quietly shushed her before she could continue to apologize. There was nothing either of us could say, especially not out in the frigid night air that would erase all the hurt we'd both lived with. So I didn't try. Instead I just pulled her against my chest and wrapped both arms around her torso. I had to bend my knees to get even close to eye level with her. But instead of looking at me, she threw her arms around my neck in a death grip. I could feel her body shaking with her emotions and I could feel the hot tears against the skin of my neck as she clung to me.

I straightened my legs, taking her with me and once again leaving her feet swinging more than a foot off the ground and simply turned my head into her hair. I closed my own eyes and just focused on the feel of her in my arms again. There was no way I could make this right for her. There was no way I could take away all the hurt that was still eating away at her. God knew I wanted to, more than anything else I'd ever wanted. But I couldn't fix what she wasn't willing to talk about.

I inhaled deeply and looked up, just as she did the same. We were staring at each other, both seemingly trying to find the right thing to say. But I knew the only thing that would show her how I felt. How I had felt then, how I felt now and how I knew I'd probably feel forever. I slowly ran my hand up her back from her waist and into the mass of hair at the base of her skull. As gently as I could, I pulled her face toward me, closing the few inches that separated up. She never looked away from me or even attempted to turn away from what she must have known I was doing. Instead, she closed her eyes again as I drew close enough to touch my nose against hers.

The first touch of our lips was so slight it was almost invisible. We both stayed very still for a heartbeat, our lips against each other. I moved against her mouth with slightly more force, parting my lips and breathing in her breath.

She didn't pull away.

The kiss deepened very slowly, very tenderly. Tentative lips and tongues touched and moved against each other in a slow rhythm as I held her tightly against me. At some point, her hand worked its way into my hair and I felt her hands still shaking. But she continued to kiss me back. She continued to meet my tongue, accepted it into the warmth of her mouth and then returned the action. Our heads moved to give the other the access to continue kissing. Time didn't matter. Neither did the cold nor the past. Nothing mattered in that moment except our kiss.

I set her feet back on the ground but didn't release her from my arms. I simply hugged her to me with all the force I could without hurting her, hunching my back so that I could rest my cheek against the top of her head. Her hands were in fists in the material of my shirt and she nuzzeled my chest softly.

"I should have done that a long time ago," I said quietly.

"I probably would have hit you if you had done that a long time ago," she replied and I could feel the smile against my chest.

"Yeah, probably," I laughed as I held her.

She turned her head slightly and I released her head enough for her to look up at me. There were tear tracks on her cheeks and her nose was red as she looked up at me with those sparkling eyes. She had never looked more beautiful to me.

"You've always been my sun, Jacob."

I didn't know what to say to her. I had no idea how to respond. So, I simply smiled at her and rubber her back from her waist to her neck.

"That's always how I thought of you, you know? My own personal sun. You always brought light and warmth into whatever space you filled."

"And I've always thought of you as a dream," I said, speaking the words out loud for the first time in my life. I wasn't sure I'd ever even said the words to myself before that, just simply felt them.

"Oh Jake," she whispered as her hand reached toward my face. I felt her fingertips against my skin, under my eyes. I hadn't realized there were tears until I felt her sweep the wetness away. She smiled brilliantly as she stroked my jawbone with her thumb.

I leaned forward again and kissed her. This time there was no slow work up. Both of us grasped the other and our mouths opened to each other with no hesitancy. Fire raced through my veins at the feel of her body, pressed so tightly against me, responding to my touches. I kissed her hard and with all the passion that I had carried for her for the last four years and she accepted everything I gave her.

It was only the fucking "honk" of the cab's horn that pulled us apart with a jump and a laugh.

"I've wanted to do that for as long as I can remember." I said with a wide grin as I looked up into the clear night sky, smiling like a fool. There was a small part of me that had begun to hope that maybe our night wouldn't be over just yet. "Especially after I saw you in that blue prom dress," I said, almost as an afterthought. I inhaled deeply and let thoughts of going upstairs with Bella flow freely.

But those thoughts crashed and burned as soon as I lowered my face from the stars and looked at her.

The transformation was immediate and all consuming.

In the space of time it had taken me to lower my chin and look at her, she had shut down completely. Her body was rigid and her eyes were filled with tears. Her breathing was very erratic and she had already pulled her arms away from me and wrapped them so tightly around herself that I thought she would bruise her ribcage.

And she was stepping back, away from me and toward the glass door of the building.

"Bella?"

"Jac...Jake, I'm sorry. Its late, I really need…" she trailed off as she turned her back to me and pushed a button just beside the glass. A man in a uniform appeared seconds later and pushed the door open for her with a small nod and a "Miss Swan".

"Bella, wait!" I nearly shouted as I stepped towards her, my arm outstretched. I caught her elbow just before she stepped into the lobby. "What's going on?" I begged as I spun her around to face me.

"Miss Swan, are you alright?" the uniformed man asked with concern.

"I'm… fine Alec. Get…get JP… please," she whimpered over her shoulder as she looked every where in the world but at me. Her entire body was shivering uncontrollably and it didn't seem that she was pulling enough air into her lungs. Already, her lips, usually so red and gorgeous even with the constant biting on them that she did, had a mild blue tint to them.

"Jacob, I'm sorry," she cried as the tears streamed down her face and she clutched the handle to the door for dear life. "I have to go. I'm sorry." She stepped forward and very quickly wrapped her arms around me in the most pathetic excuse for a hug I'd ever felt. "I have to go Jake, please," she squeaked out as I made to move toward her.

I was so stunned that I didn't move quickly enough to catch her before she was inside the building and running toward the silver elevator at the back of the lobby. I watched, helplessly, as the doors opened just before she had a chance to press the button that would call the carrier to the ground floor. Inside the car, the dread locked JP stood. As soon as his eyes found her, his expression changed from annoyance to fright. He stepped into the marbled room and put his arms around her as she nearly fell into him.

He looked out the glass and stared directly at me. Then he shocked me by shrugging his shoulders and giving me a look of pity. He held one finger out toward me, telling me to hold on I thought, then turned back to Bella. He kissed her forehead gently and waved for the doorman to come to them. He very gently deposited her into the grasp of the doorman, who seemed to be nearly holding her upright.

I stepped toward the door as he jogged across the lobby toward the glass that separated us. He opened the glass door but didn't step all the way out, nor did he motion for me to come inside even though he obviously recognized me from the club. When he spoke though, he didn't seem angry or annoyed. Just very worried.

"Look man, I don't know what happened but she's having a panic attack. I gotta get her upstairs to Chip before she blacks out. Leave your number with Alec and I'll make sure she gets it. Cool?"

"Yeah," I answered hollowly. Panic attack? What the hell happened? I couldn't figure out how things had swung so drastically in such a short amount of time. He started back inside and I snapped out of my nearly frozen state. "Wait? She is going to be okay, right?"

He looked over his shoulder and then back to me. He was ready to get her to wherever he was taking her but trying not to be nasty about it.

"Yeah, she does this sometimes. But she'll be alright. Listen, I gotta go."

"Of course. Take care of her," I shouted as the glass closed again.

I watched until they disappeared into the elevator again. By that time, I understood what he meant. She really did look nearly unconscious and he actually picked her up once he'd moved her into the car. I numbly sank into the still waiting cab. It was like floating. I couldn't for the life of me understand what had changed things so dramatically. But I did know that if _**that**_was what was rattling around inside of her, it was no wonder that she was so fucking quiet.

I was like a zombie all the way back to the hotel. Without a word, I handed the driver some cash and didn't wait for him to give me my change. The room was dark and there were the sounds of snoring coming from all around me. I dropped myself into a chair and just stared at the dark nothingness of the room around me, trying desperately to make sense of what had happened. I replayed the night from the first moment I'd seen her back in my head like a movie. Every word, every facial expression…everything, just trying to find the trigger for her panic attack.

Just as I noticed the sun rising from the gap in the curtains, it hit me what had caused her to go into a tailspin.

Prom.

Fucking prom.

That she'd gone to with…

"Fuck," I spat as I leaned my head back onto the edge of the chair and closed my eyes. Apparently, I was more exhausted than I'd realized because before I could form the string of words in my head that would adequately describe my feelings of absolute hatred, I fell asleep.

I woke up a few hours later, the sun now streaming in through the gap and directly in my eyes. Quil and Embry were both sprawled out on the beds in the room, both still deeply asleep and both snoring like animals. Any other day, it would have been funny. But today…

I stood and stretched my aching muscles. The lack of sleep combined with the night had taken its toll on me and I felt old to my bones. I left a quick note to the guys that I would be back before they checked out and not to leave me before I walked out the door. I didn't bother showering or even running a hand through my hair. I just left.

I needed to see her, to see if she was alright.

The hazy recollection of her telling me that the band would be at the club to pack up the equipment lead me to give the cab driver I asked the front desk to call for me the name of the club. The fifteen minute drive seemed much shorter in the light of day than it had the night before. When I stepped out into the parking lot we'd been joking in last night, it struck me how very different it seemed in the sunlight. There was nothing intimidating at all in the space. Nothing was out of place or unique in the absence of the Goths and the night.

The door to the club was unlocked when I pulled on the handle. The bald bartender from the night before looked up and nodded to me as I walked past him without a word of dissent. I made my way back toward the seats we had been lead to the night before. All the lights in the club were out except for the ones directly above the stage. There were a half dozen men working around the room as I sank into the chair at the very rear of the stage room. Each of them seemed to have a specific task and they were all intent of doing their jobs. They were rolling up what seemed miles of cable around their arms in large loops, closing up the case of a large board with hundreds of knobs in the center of the room and tearing down the lighting harnesses that hung above the stage.

Not one of them so much as looked my way.

The band was onstage, four of them sitting on stools that surrounded the large black piano. Bella was sitting on a very large bench behind the piano leaning her left shoulder against JP's knee, his stool being just behind her. And she looked fucking awful.

She was still wearing the same tee shirt from the night before. Her hair was out of the pony tail and streaming down her back and around her face. If I'd slept only a little bit and it had been fitful, then she had obviously not slept a wink. Her eyes were so blood shot it made me hurt for her. The circles under her eyes were nearly black and her skin was still blotched from where she had been crying. She seemed to be leaning against the bass player not out of comfort but out of sheer need. She seemed so exhausted that she might fall over off the bench she sat on.

JP had an acoustic guitar sitting across his lap, his right arm draped over the rounded end and his fingers rubbing the side of Bella's hair in a very sweet comforting gesture. The other guitar player sat at the end of the piano facing the two of them and a little slip of a woman was standing behind a keyboard that was perched on the edge of the grand piano. The drummer was seated behind his kit and was smoking a cigarette while the others below him all looked over several sheets of paper that were spread out across the closed lid of the instrument. They had been talking to each other when I'd sat down and now that I focused in on what they were saying, I could hear the entire conversation as clearly as if they were sitting beside me.

"…wrote this last night? Fuck, when?" the guitar player with his back to me said with a huff.

"Yeah, Bitch had kind of a rough night," he said as he leaned down and pecked the top of her head with his lips. "So we stayed up and wrote."

"Panic attack?" the woman at keyboard asked her. Bella nodded her head very slightly and the woman gave her a sad smile.

Jesus, how often did she have these attacks? It didn't seem to shock or surprise any of the people on the stage. As awful as it was to witness, I assumed it happened very frequently for them to be so accepting about it.

"And you two wrote this together? Fucking hell that's a dark one. Lyrics come from her?" he asked JP again.

He just nodded and cut his eyes toward her before he stroked her hair again. He stubbed out his own cigarette in the ashtray he had perched on the edge of the riser the drum kit was sitting on and then looked over at the guitarist. "You guys ready to try it."

"Sure," the guy said dryly as he adjusted his electric guitar across his own lap. "And just for the record, I think you guys both need some serious psychological help."

"Dually noted," Bella said as she spoke for the first time since I'd arrived. "I'd have to agree with you, Dimitri." She pressed both hands harshly into her eyes for just a second before sat up straighter at the piano.

JP adjusted a microphone so that it was at an angle in front of him and begun to strum slowly on his acoustic guitar. The notes were terrible in their darkness. Only ten seconds into the song and it was clear this was not going to have an upbeat message. I was a little taken aback when he started to sing, rather than her. But as soon as I heard the tone of his voice as he sang her lyrics, it was apparent that this was going to be harsh to listen to.

**Etch all your secrets in my skin**

**And come away with innocence and leave me with my sins**

**The air around me still feels like a cage**

**And love is just a camouflage **

**For what resembles rage**

Dimitri, the guitarist, joined in with his electric guitar in a perfect if not equally as depressing harmony with the sad acoustic. I watched as Bella stared at nothing atop the piano's lid, not seeing anything but feeling every cut of the notes and lyrics as they played.

**So if you love me, let me go**

**And run away before I know**

**My heart is just too dark to care**

**I can't destroy what isn't there**

**Deliver me into my fate**

**If I'm alone I cannot hate**

**I don't deserve to have you**

**My smile was taken long ago**

**If I can change, I hope I never know**

"Horrifying, isn't it?" a voice asked from directly beside me just as the rest of the musicians joined in the desperate song. The last few hours had been such a roller coaster for me; it hardly even registered as shock as I watched Bella play the keys of the piano hard enough to injure her hands. I looked to my right as Chip sat down beside me, his eyes not looking at me but staring at the woman on the stage that we both loved.

"Yeah, it is," I answered, even though I wasn't sure if it was the desperation in the song or the state of her life I was referring to. Both were true. Her eyes were now closed and there were tears sliding down her cheeks even as the music continued. But if I thought I'd heard the worst the lyrics had to offer, I was wrong.

**So save your breath, I will not care**

**I think I made it very clear**

**You couldn't hate enough to love**

**Is that suppose to be enough**

**I only wish you weren't my friend**

**Then I could hurt you in the end**

**I never claimed to be a saint**

**My heart was banished long ago**

**It took the death of hope to let you go**

"It's him, isn't it?" I asked the man beside me as the words washed over me.

"It's always been him," he answered with regret in his voice. "I'm afraid it will always be him."

I couldn't speak around the knot in my throat, so I nodded instead. I'd known it last night when I went over what had happened to set her off. It was the mention of the prom and the reminder of him. It was no different than so long ago in my garage when she would turn the radio off when a song came on that reminded her. Every little thing, every little insignificant memory was somehow wrapped around that son of a bitch.

That's what this whole new life was all about. She had intentionally locked herself away behind the person on stage because it was the only way she could function from day to day. She had kept going after he'd left for Charlie's sake. But I guessed that after he was gone too, it was just too much for her to deal with. Listening to the song and watching her as she played, he late night disappearance and the years with no word from her all made sense.

"Take care of her please," I asked Chip.

"I will. Or at least I'll try," he conceded. We both knew there was only so much he could do.

Without listening to the rest of the song, I rose and walked out of the club. I just started walking through the quiet streets, no real purpose in my steps except to get far enough away from the city to not be noticed. I sent a quick text to Sam to let him know they should drive back without me and then tied the phone to the cord on my left wrist. The rest of my clothes would just have to shred. I just kept walking until my walk turned into a run, waiting for the moment to come when I could phase and free myself from the thoughts that looped through my head and tore through my heart. It wasn't that she was gone again. It wasn't that last night, for the briefest amount of time, I'd thought that maybe we could reconnect. It wasn't even that she had never really been mine to begin with.

No, the thought that hammered at me over and over again was that, no matter what it the cost, she would **always **belong to him.

**So, is everyone now thoroughly depressed? Sorry about that. I warned her that I would give her what she asked for but that I never promised her a happy ending. But I want to try and make up for yet another depressing one-shot (really, all the prequels could possibly be are downers…). **

**So I thought "What would make the EverClear groupies feel better?" And the answer I came up with is…**

**EverClear Reunited! Part 3 of the EverClear story has now begun. I will post the first chapter Sunday, October 2****nd**** and then at least one chapter a week from there on out. Possibly more…the story is well under way. I hope to see a lot of familiar names popping up in the reviews, I have missed you guys very very much. So set your Author Alerts if you haven't already and let me know what you think!**

**See ya very soon!**

**Kelly**


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